A stroke can affect everyone, from infants to the elderly. It is expected that 25% of the world’s population will experience one at some point in their lives. In any event, it is a disease in which age is one of the key risk factors, and the number of cases is expected to increase dramatically in the next 20 years due to the ageing of the American population.

According to CDC, someone in the United States has a stroke every 40 seconds. Every 4 minutes, someone dies of stroke.

Every year, more than 795,000 people in the United States have a stroke. About 610,000 of these are first or new strokes.

But age is not the only risk factor. 34% of strokes treated in the US hospitals correspond to people under 65 years of age, according to data from the CDC. 

According to experts, more than 80% of strokes might be avoided if people quit smoking, drank less alcohol, exercised frequently, ate a Mediterranean diet, avoided being overweight or stressed, and kept their blood pressure, sugar, and cholesterol under control.

Other diseases that can raise your risk of having a stroke, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, and other heart issues, such as cardiac arrhythmias, should be diagnosed and treated with regular check-ups. Furthermore, having already had a stroke increases the likelihood of having another, therefore these patients must take lifestyle adjustments carefully.

Despite its high incidence, many individuals are unaware of the warning signals of a stroke, which is crucial information because the progression and prognosis of this disease are determined by how long it takes to reverse the situation.

The first step is to comprehend what occurs in our bodies when we have a stroke. It is a brain condition caused by an abrupt disruption in blood circulation in a specific location of the brain. When the blood supply is interrupted, the area loses its ability to function. The symptoms are things that the body is unable to do.

There are two types of Strokes: Cerebral infarction, also known as ischemic stroke, occurs when a clot blocks an artery and blood cannot flow; while cerebral haemorrhage, also known as hemorrhagic stroke, occurs when a blood vessel ruptures and blood flows into the brain. Both of them have the same symptoms.

You must call your doctors only if one of them appears:

– Sudden alteration in language, with difficulties speaking or understanding.

– Sudden loss of strength or sensitivity in a part of the body. It generally affects one half of the body and manifests itself mainly on the face and/or the extremities.

– Sudden alteration of vision, such as loss of vision in one eye, double vision or inability to see objects on one side of our visual field.

– Sudden loss of coordination or balance.

– Very intense headache and different from other common headaches.

Although there are certain really serious strokes in which the patient’s degree of consciousness is also disturbed, the patient, in general, is aware of these indicators.

It is also possible that, even if the patient does not lose consciousness, one section of the brain responsible for perception is disturbed and the patient is unaware of what is going on.

These indicators, on the other hand, will be very evident to the person in front of you. That is why it is critical that those close to you are aware of the symptoms.

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