1. What is a stroke?
Stroke, called stroke in Chinese medicine, is a sudden rupture and bleeding of blood vessels in the brain, or a blockage that causes ischemia and hypoxia in the brain. Strokes are usually divided into two categories: ischemic strokes and hemorrhagic strokes. The former is also called “cerebral infarction” and the latter is also called “cerebral hemorrhage”.
2. What are the causes of stroke?
There are many risk factors for stroke, among which advanced age, race, and family history of stroke are uncontrollable risk factors, while hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, obesity, smoking, and history of stroke or transient ischemic attack are controllable risk factors.
3. When should I consider that I have had a stroke?
(1) Sudden onset of weakness or immobility of one limb.
(2) Sudden onset of numbness or abnormal sensation in one limb, hand, foot, face, mouth, lips or tongue.
(3) Sudden onset of dizziness, especially vertigo with tinnitus, nausea and vomiting – manifested as a kind of rotation of vision that dares not open the eyes.
(4) Headache, especially a severe or persistent headache that is different from usual.
(5) Sudden speech disorders, such as slurred speech, aphasia, etc.
(6) Transient blurred vision or blackness, i.e., blackness in both eyes.
(7) Unstable walking or unexplained fall.
(8) Transient disturbance or even loss of consciousness, mental abnormality or personality change, etc.
4. What should I do if I find out that I have had an acute stroke? — You should go to the hospital for emergency examination as soon as possible. Don’t take any chances and try to get the best treatment and results in time!
(1) Patients within 3-4.5 hours of the onset of acute cerebral infarction should be admitted to the internal stroke ward as soon as possible. Patients should be strictly screened according to the indications and contraindications and given intravenous thrombolytic therapy as soon as possible to improve cerebral blood supply and save ischemic brain tissue as much as possible. For patients with large artery occlusion where intravenous thrombolysis is ineffective or where thrombolysis is contraindicated, perform whole brain angiography and, if necessary, remedial arterial thrombolysis or mechanical embolization (within 8 h of onset).
(2) For patients with cerebral infarction beyond the above time window, a reasonable treatment plan should be given according to the ischemic etiology typing.
(3) Cerebral hemorrhage: cerebellar hemorrhage (> 10 ml or diameter > 3 cm) and cerebral hemisphere hemorrhage > 30 ml if neurological function continues to deteriorate, cerebral surgery should be requested as soon as possible to remove the hematoma or perform minimally invasive intracranial hematoma removal.
(4) Subarachnoid hemorrhage: admit to the stroke ward of internal medicine department urgently, strengthen supervision, prevent rebleeding, contact interventional department for whole brain angiography, and if necessary, perform endovascular interventional treatment.
5. Stroke precautions
(1) Once the stroke signs occur, regain your composure quickly and call 120, keeping in mind that “time is life” and never think that “it will be fine if you take a rest”, which will only delay the diagnosis and treatment and lose the best time for treatment.
(2) Do not lie on your back, your head should be tilted to the side, remove foreign bodies in the mouth, such as vomit, dentures, etc., to keep the airway open.
(3) Do not take medication on your own. Random medication before diagnosis may aggravate the condition. Evaluation and treatment by a neurologist, take medication and follow up under the guidance of a doctor.