Stroke Symposium Flashcards
What are the social impacts of having a stroke?
- Lack of confidence
- live in fear of another stroke
- find it difficult to talk about their stroke and their effect on their lives
- feel friends and family treat them differently
- unable to care for their family in the same way as before
- breakdown of relationships
What are key features of a clinical assessment in someone presenting with stroke?
- assessment?
- Sudden onset of focal neurological or monocular symptoms
- Symptoms and signs should fit within a vascular territory
- Negative symptoms rather than positive symptoms
- numbness
- a higher examination score means a more sever stroke
What is on the NIH stroke Scale
- 0 No stroke symptoms
- 1–4 Minor stroke
- 5–15 Moderate stroke
- 16–20 Moderate to severe stroke
- 11 items on the list
What is the vascular territories of the brain?
What is an ACA infarct?
- Anterior Cerebral Infarct
- Presents as contralateral hemiparesis with loss of sensibility in the foot and lower extremity,
- sometimes with urinary incontinence.
- This is due to the involvement of the medial paracentral gyrus.
What is a Left MCA infarct?
- Left Middle Cerebral Artery Infarct (most common)
- it supplies most of the frontal, parietal and temporal lobes
- Presents with Dysphasia, right-sided weakness/ numbness
What is a Right MCA infarct?
- Right Middle Cerebral Artery Infarct
- Presents with neglect, left-sided weakness/ numbness
What is a Brainstem infarct?
- Presents with diplopia, visual field defects, facial weakness, contralateral limb weakness/numbness, incoordination
What are the causes of Stroke?
(2 main)
- Haemorrhagic
- circle of Willis
- arterio-venous dysplasia
- intracerebral haemorrhage
- Ischaemic
- thromboembolic brain infarct
- brain vessel thrombosis
- embolus from extracranial thrombosis
What imaging is done to distinguish the cause of stroke? (2)
- how would each type of stroke present
CT
- dark/low areas
- haemorrhage or clots would present as bright white on the scan
MRI
- Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) is a commonly performed MRI sequence for evaluation of acute ischemic stroke and is sensitive in the detection of small and early infarcts
What is a Watershed Infarct?
Watershed cerebral infarctions (WI) , also known as border zone infarcts occur at the border between cerebral vascular territories where the tissue is furthest from arterial supply and thus most vulnerable to reductions in perfusion.
What is Critical Ischaemia?
- what imaging can be done?
- when there is high metabolic demand of the brain - no glucose score
- may be due to a clot that reduces perfusion of the brain
- <20ml/100g/min
- the electrical function stops - neurons are still alive, potentially salvageable
- reversible ischaemia - only for a limited time
- <10ml/100g/min
- neuronal death within minutes -
- irreversible ischaemia - cerebral infarction
- CT perfusion imaging - greener the better
What is the treatment/ management of ischaemic clot?
- tPA (tissue Plasminogen Activator)
- clot dissolver
- Stent retrieval
- CT angiogram with die
- Anti-platelet medication to prevents clotting
- Aspirin after 24hrs (not with tPA or else it causes bleeding)
- Clopidogrel after 2 weeks
What are vascular risk factors for Stroke?
- Diabetes: promotes prothrombotic state, facilitates platelet adhesion
- Smoking: prothrombotic state, platelet activation and adhesion, endothelial injury
- Hypertension: shearing force on blood vessels, endothelial injury, prothrombotic state
- Hyperlipidaemia: lipid accumulation in foamy macrophages forms atherosclerotic plaques that can be dislodged and become a clot
- LDL: oxidised to free radicals –> promotes inflammation
stress
What screening/ investigations can be done to screen for risk factors?
- ECG - regular rhythm of heart, clots may interrupt this
- Bloods- diabetes and hyperlipidaemia
- Ultrasound- to pick up a clot in the carotid bifurcation (dissected carotid)
- Echo- to see if there is a hole in the heart