Hurray, Today is World Stroke Day!
Stroke is not a joke and you know what? It is preventable.
Stroke was first recognized by Hippocrates, father of modern
medicine, over 2400 years ago. It was then called apoplexy, which means ‘’struck
down by violence’’ in Greek. It was not until the mid-1600s that Jacob Wepfer
found that patients who died with apoplexy had bleeding in the brain. He also
discovered that a blockage in one of the brain's blood vessels could cause
apoplexy.
Medical science continued to study the cause, symptoms and treatment
of apoplexy and, finally, in 1928, apoplexy was divided into categories based
on the cause of the blood vessel problem. This led to the terms stroke or
"cerebrovascular accident (CVA)." Stroke is now often referred to
as a "brain attack" to denote the fact that it is caused by a lack of
blood supply to the brain, very much like a heart attack is caused by a lack of
blood supply to the heart. The term brain attack also conveys a more urgent
call for immediate action and emergency treatment by the general public.
Stroke is defined as rapidly developing focal or global
neurological deficits lasting longer than 24 hours or leading to death and
which is of no other aetiology other than vascular.
Stroke
can be ischaemic; blood supply to part of the brain is
decreased leading to dysfunction of brain tissue in that area. This can
be caused
by thrombosis (obstruction of a blood vessel by a clot formed locally),
embolism
(obstruction due to embolus (blood clot, fat, cancer cells etc) from
elsewhere in
the body), cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and systemic hypotension as
in shock. Stroke can also be haemorrhagic (bleeding within the brain or
subarachnoid space).
Stroke can manifest as paralysis of one side of the body
and/or face, difficulty with speech, altered gait, inability to swallow, loss
of consciousness, vertigo, blurring vision, severe headache etc
.
Risk factors for stroke
Hypertension,
diabetes
mellitus, age (>65 years), transient ischaemic attack (a sudden focal
loss of neurological function with complete recovery usually within 24
hours; caused by a brief period of inadequate perfusion in a portion of
the territory of the carotid or vertebro-basilar arteries),
polycythaemia (an increase above the normal in the number of red cells
in
the blood), sickle
cell anaemia, oral contraceptive pills (OCP) ,hormonal replacement
therapy (HRT), heart
disease like atrial fibrillation, cancer, auto-immune diseases like
systemic
lupus erythematosus (SLE), hypercoagulable states like homocysteinaemia,
obesity, cigarette smoking and recreational drug use like cocaine.
TIME IS SO PRECIOUS IN THE MANAGEMENT OF STROKE. PROMPT REFERRAL
TO A NEUROLOGIST CAN DO WONDERS. So don’t allow yourself or your relative to either die
or be severely debilitated because of stroke.
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Love, actually:- the science behind lust, attraction and companionship.
Author:- Kim Hathaway. PhD Harvard. In 1993, Haddaway asked the world, “What is Love?” I’m not sure if he ever got his answer – but today, you can have yours. Sort of. Scientists in fields ranging from anthropology to neuroscience have been asking this same question (albeit less eloquently) for decades. It turns out the science behind love is both simpler and more complex than we might think. Google the phrase “biology of love” and you’ll get answers that run the gamut of accuracy. Needless to say, the scientific basis of love is often sensationalized, and as with most science, we don’t know enough to draw firm conclusions about every piece of the puzzle. What we do know, however, is that much of love can be explained by chemistry. So, if there’s really a “formula” for love, what is it, and what does it mean? Total Eclipse of the Brain Think of the last time you ran into someone you find attractive. You may have stammered, your palms may have sweated; you may have said ...
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