What is the cause of a stroke?
Almost 270,000 people suffer a stroke in Germany every year. After heart attack and cancer, a stroke is the third leading cause of death in Germany.
The reason is often a circulatory disorder in the brain, for example due to a narrowed carotid artery. In about 85 percent of cases, an artery that supplies blood to the brain is blocked by what is called a clot.
Bleeding in the brain after a blood vessel ruptures in the brain can also trigger a stroke. That accounts for almost 15 percent of all cases. An aneurysm is the rarest cause of a stroke. This leads to bleeding from a vascular bulge.
Take the test: Stroke Symptoms
- sudden paralysis or loss of sensation on one side of the body
- Sudden speech disturbances, difficulty understanding the language of others
- Visual disturbances, such as double vision
- sudden, severe headache
- sudden severe dizziness
F stands for “Face”, you should look at the face to see if it is paralyzed on one side. “A” stands for “arms”, you should let the person raise both arms. “”S” stands for language”: You should hear whether the person concerned speaks slurred. “T” stands for “Time”: Don’t waste any time and dial the emergency number 112.
In the case of a transient stroke, the symptoms may only appear for a few minutes to hours. It can be a first sign of a serious emergency and should therefore always be medically clarified as soon as possible, even if the symptoms have disappeared after some time.
Treatment of an acute stroke
Thrombolysis: Up to 4.5 hours after the first symptoms appear, neurologists can use a drug called lysis to dissolve the blood clot again. If this time window is exceeded or if the clot is particularly large, an Thrombektomie for use. The clot is mechanically removed with the help of a catheter. In individual cases, this procedure is still possible up to 24 hours after the stroke.
The time window in which stroke patients can benefit from a thrombectomy is therefore significantly larger than previously assumed. Until 2018, damaged tissue could only be saved about six to eight hours after a stroke. We now know that there is still hope for a long time to come.
However, do not waste any time!
“That doesn’t mean you should wait long to get help,” emphasizes Dr. Alexander Reinshagen, head of the neurological department at the Sana Klinikum in Borna. Again and again he experiences that patients lie down again after the appearance of the first symptoms in order to rest and perhaps to recover on their own. “This is the worst mistake,” warns the brain expert.
It’s still the case that brain cells are dying every minute, potentially causing serious irreversible brain damage.
Therapy options and chances of recovery significantly improved
But Dr. Reinshagen also encourages: Thanks to modern radiological imaging, the therapy options and chances of recovery have improved significantly today. Some brain cells that were previously thought to be dead can be “awakened” again. Many patients still benefit from a catheter procedure several hours after a stroke and make a substantial recovery after clot removal and rehabilitation. This is especially important for nocturnal strokes, where it is not known exactly when they actually happened, which is 15 to 20 percent of the time.