Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Silent strokes can jeopardize memory

My doctor mentioned something about I must have had several very small strokes because they showed up on the MRI. Of course he never showed me my locations on the scan or even showed me any scan at all.  No mention on my medical record.Obviously I didn't have either the brains or the need to know about the damage to MY brain.
http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Womens_Health_Watch/2012/June/could-a-silent-stroke-erode-your-memory
The symptoms of a stroke are sometimes obvious, like numbness or weakness on one side of the face, trouble speaking, difficulty walking, and vision problems. Some strokes, though, pass completely unnoticed. But even these can have a significant and lasting effect on memory, reports the June 2012 issue of the Harvard Women’s Health Watch.
These so-called silent strokes create pinpoints of dead cells in the brain. The damaged areas are smaller than with a traditional stroke, and often don’t affect areas of the brain associated with movement or speech.
During a typical ischemic stroke, a blood clot blocks a blood vessel that feeds part of the brain. Without a steady supply of blood, cells in that area malfunction and may die. Symptoms that appear reflect the functions that were controlled by the affected part of the brain. A hemorrhagic stroke caused by a burst blood vessel does the same thing.
During a silent stroke, the interruption in blood flow occurs in part of the brain that doesn’t control any vital functions. Although it doesn’t cause any obvious symptoms—most people who’ve had a silent stroke have no idea it occurred—the damage does show up on an MRI or CT scan.
Silent strokes could interrupt the flow of information in the brain needed for memory, especially if several of these strokes occur over time (which is the most common scenario). Damage from silent strokes can accumulate, leading to more and more memory problems.
Is there anything a woman can do when faced with a stroke that has no symptoms, and that can only be found on an MRI or CT scan? “I think that it should make people aware that it’s imperative to manage risk factors,” says Karen Furie, associate professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Stroke Service. This means:
  • controlling blood pressure and diabetes
  • not smoking
  • keeping cholesterol levels in check
  • aiming for a healthy weight
  • managing atrial fibrillation
If you are experiencing signs of memory loss, don’t dismiss it as a normal part of aging. See your doctor for testing to make sure the issue isn’t a silent stroke.

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