Stroke Prevention, What You Need To Know
Stroke Prevention, What You Need To Know
A stroke is found to occur due to narrowing of blood vessels, bleeding occurring inside the brain, and blood clots. All these reasons are primarily responsible for blocking the blood flow towards the brain. As the essential nutrients do not get supplied to the brain, the nerve cells of our brain start collapsing away within a span of few minutes.
Consequently, the effects of a stroke can be sensory loss as well as loss of vision, problems with talking and walking, as well as difficulty to think clearly. These stroke effects are often found to be irreversible.
The vulnerability towards a stroke varies from one individual to other. Stroke risk is increased by:
• Chronic health problems such as diabetes and unfavorable blood.
• Smoking cigarettes, drinking excessively or being overweight.
• A stroke history in their family
• African-American ethnic belonging.
If someone has already suffered a stroke in the past or had a transient ischemic stroke (“mini stroke or TIA), he/she is at the highest risk. A stroke is associated with various warning signals like slurred speech, stumbling, clumsiness, blurred vision, and sudden unexplained tingling or numbness of one side of the body.
How to Prevent?
Experts are of the view that a stroke can also be prevented like a heart attack by quitting smoking, exercising, drinking moderately, and seeking medical intervention which is a must for people belonging to the high-risk category.
Recent studies by AHCPR say that for people having conditions such as carotid artery or atrial fibrillation, medical interventions are available for dramatically lowering the risk of suffering a stroke.
Atrial Fibrillation:
The heart’s upper left compartment of people having atrial fibrillation beats unpredictably and rapidly causing difficulties for the chamber’s blood to get emptied.
This leftover blood may form clots which can travel and reach other body parts, including brain, which results in a stroke. Anticoagulants like warfarin and aspirin are used for preventing the formation of these clots but current studies have found that aspirin is inferior to warfarin in this regard.
Warfarin has the potential of preventing 50% of the annual 80,000 strokes caused due to atrial fibrillation. But, its use is associated with:
• Increased bleeding risk. Proper dosage and regular blood pressure monitoring will prevent this.
• Each bleeding complication due to warfarin averts 20 strokes.
• Refer medical professionals for avoiding drugs like anticonvulsants and antibiotics which interfere with anticoagulation.
Hence, have proper knowledge before taking any medication.