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?
- 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 severe 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?
How does a Total Anterior Circulation (TAC) stroke present?
what areas of the brain are affected and what is the prognosis?
presents with all of the following being affected
- motor or sensory
- cortical
- hemianopia
Suggests a global involvement of the anterior and middle cerebral artery and sometimes the posterior cerebral artery
60% dead at 1 year
35% dependant at 1 year
How does a Partial Anterior Circulation (TAC) stroke present?
what is the prognosis?
presents with 2 of the following being affected
- motor or sensory
- cortical
- hemianopia
20% dead at 1 year
30% dependant at 1 year
How does a Lacunar stroke present?
what is the prognosis?
presents with motor or sensory signs only
10% dead at 1 year
25% dependant at 1 year
DASHING
What are cerebellar signs?
DASHING
- Dysdiadokinesia & Dysmetria: inability to perform rapidly changing hand movements
- Ataxia: gross incoordination of muscle movements
- Slurred speech: imprecise, slow, distorted
- Hypotonia: on the side of the lesion
- Intentional tremor: wide tremor during intentional movements e.g holding out hand
- Nystagmus: repetitive, involuntary oscillation of the eyes, and potential blurred vision
- Gait issues: broad-base/ rolling gait (side to side more than usual)
How does a Posterior Circulation present?
what is the prognosis?
Hemianopia, brain stem signs, cerebellar signs
20% dead at 1 year
20% dependant at 1 year
How does an Anterior circulation stroke present?
- Unilateral weakness
- Unilateral sensory loss or inattention
- Isolated dysarthria
- Dysphasia
- Vision: h. hemianopia, m. blindness, v. inattention
What is an ACA infarct and how does it present?
- 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
How does a Posterior circulation stroke present?
- Isolated h. hemianopia
- Diplopia and disconjugate eyes
- Nausea and vomiting
- Incoordination and unsteadiness
- Unilateral or bilateral weakness and/or sensory loss
- Non specific signs
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 the 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 clots?
All patients are considered high risk
Sinus rhythm patients
- 300mg Aspirin (high dose) - Anti-platelet medication to prevent clotting
- referral to specialist assessment (not with tPA or else it causes bleeding)
- Clopidogrel 75 mg long termafter 2 weeks
→ Patients with AF: Warfarin or DOAC (rivaroxaban, apixaban, dabigatran) : along with heart monitoring
-
Alteplase: tPA (tissue Plasminogen Activator)- clot dissolved:
- up to 6 hours from onset of stroke increases the chance of a near-complete recovery
- Stent retrieval: CT angiogram with dye