Stroke Patient Recovery Depends On Quick Care

Once a person has a stroke, he or she loses two million neurons a minute—the brain has 86 billion. Therefore, the faster the diagnosis and treatment, the greater the chance that the patient has to survive the disease and not be left with serious sequelae.

This was one of the conclusions of the seminar AVC: Challenges and Innovations for Prevention, Care and Treatment, promoted by Folha, sponsored by Hospital Sírio-Libanês and by the biopharmaceutical company Allergan. The event was held last Thursday (4) and was mediated by journalist Ana Bottallo.

Suzete Farias, multispecialty medical manager at Idor Bahia (D’Or Institute for Education and Research), explains that there are two ways to treat an ischemic stroke — when there is a blockage in the artery that pumps blood to the brain.

Mechanical thrombectomy can be used to aspirate the fatty plaque that has interrupted blood flow or give intravenous medications that can dissolve the clot. The second case, however, can only be done up to four and a half hours after the onset of symptoms.

The doctor warns of the need to recognize the symptoms and seek the right healthcare service. “It’s no use going to any emergency, because only hospitals that have established and organized stroke protocols will be able to provide proper care to the patient.”

An alternative is to access the AVC Brasil application, which maps the places that have care for the disease.

According to Jose Guilherme Mendes Pereira Caldas, medical coordinator of the Interventional Neuroradiology Service of the Hospital Sírio-Libanês, there are already advanced tests to check the condition of the arteries and prevent a stroke.

The specialist says that it is common for people over 45 years of age to undergo a procedure to check the arteries of the neck, because, at this age, there may already be plaque formation. They, in turn, can cause an embolus, responsible for the interruption of blood flow.

Caldas says that, to prevent the disease, the most important thing is to have a healthy lifestyle. “You can’t have high blood pressure, diabetes has to be controlled and it’s necessary to avoid smoking and alcohol.”

Covid has also become a factor that can make stroke cases worse. Suzete Farias participated in a study carried out in 2020 with 100 victims of the disease from six hospitals in the country. Performing the cranial tomography and collecting the PCR exam, they were able to relate the two diseases.

According to Farias, people with risk factors have increased chances of suffering stroke with Covid-19 due to vascular damage, hypercoagulability and the pro-inflammatory state caused by the virus.

Even if there is an effort to speed up care and prevent stroke, 60% to 70% of people develop some type of disability, according to Linamara Rizzo Battistella, one of the coordinators of the WHO health-related rehabilitation guidelines development group /WHO. About 40% of patients create some more severe addiction throughout their lives.

For the recovery to be the best possible, the doctor says that it is necessary to undergo intensive treatment in the two weeks following the stroke. Three areas need to be covered: communication, mobility and the sensory part, worked together.

“Complete well-being does not mean walking as you used to, but being able to have good social interaction. The team’s duty is to guide the patient so that the treatment is intensively maintained in the hospital, in the rehabilitation center and then at home, for the whole life.”

Battistella cites technologies that can help with recovery. This is the case of the use of robots, which help in the movement of the limbs, and infrared spectroscopy, which checks how much movement is improving some part of the brain.

In the same sense, Suzete Farias, from IDOR, participates in a survey that performs peripheral stimulation to assess the motor response that patients present before and after. This allows you to assess the best form of treatment.

The study has research centers in São Paulo and Salvador and volunteers can apply through the link: https://redcap.link/restores.

no warning

Writer Raimundo Carrero, 73, also present at the event, was the victim of a stroke in 2010. He says he tried to get out of bed during the night, but he couldn’t.

The ambulance was called, and the writer was taken to the hospital, where he underwent tests and was taken to the ICU. Afterwards, he underwent physical therapy.

“What impresses me most is that I didn’t feel anything before having the stroke,” he says. Today, he still cannot move his left hand. Carrero suspects that the case may be linked to the abusive consumption of alcohol that was part of his daily life.

Suzete Farias says that the symptoms of the disease come suddenly and depend on which part of the brain was affected.

“We have a map of the brain and each area has a specific function: there is the movement area, there is the speech area, there is the vision area”, he explains.

So that it is possible to identify a case of stroke at home, she indicates the SAMU technique, an acronym that defines some commands to be carried out by those who are suspected of having the disease.

At the opening of the seminar, Marco Paschoalin, medical director of AbbVie, a pharmaceutical company, pointed out the importance of expanding knowledge about stroke.

“It is important for the patient to be aware that there are ways to alleviate the sequelae so that he can have the maximum amount of normality in his life — and until he can have, in many cases, a complete recovery”, says Paschoalin.