ICTUS: la importancia del tiempo

The recognition of symptoms and the control of risk factors is usually vital to treat this problem in time.

Stroke is one of the most lethal diseases in the world, being the first medical cause of disability. It affects 17 million people annually and suffers one out of every six people throughout his life.

Control of risk factors and symptoms

The control of risk factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, high cholesterol, healthy lifestyle habits such as the Mediterranean diet, physical exercise and the detection of a cardiac arrhythmia can prevent its appearance.

It is vital to act quickly because the patient does not usually have tools to alert others, so it is important to recognize the symptoms. The main alarms are the inability or difficulty to speak, the deviation of the mouth and the loss of strength in the extremities of one side of the body. 

"Alarms: inability or difficulty to speak, deviation of the mouth and / or loss of strength"

Time is brain!

As time passes, the brain cells die progressively and end up causing an irreversible infarction. The CAT scan or the Resonance allow to visualize the area that does not receive blood and the damaged area. Thus, we can quantify the intermediate zone that can be saved if blood flow is restored quickly.

In the previous image we see on the left, in red, the cerebral area without blood flow in a patient with a stroke of 2 hours. On the right we see recovery after thrombectomy.

The administration of venous drugs capable of dissolving the clot or extracting it through a catheter increases the probability of recovery by almost 3 times. It is necessary that this treatment be administered as soon as possible within the first 6 hours from the onset of symptoms.

For more information, consult a specialist in Neurosurgery .