One third of people who had a stroke die and half of survivors remain disabled. For this reason, stroke prevention is particularly important.
There are two types of stroke: hemorrhagic when blood pours into the brain and ischemic which occurs after a sudden interruption of blood flow into the brain. The majority of strokes are ischemic. About one third of them occur when blood clot is delivered from heart to brain and brain artery is clogged. Clots are formed because of atrial fibrillation, rheumatic heart defects or because of myocardial infarction. All these patients must take medications to reduce blood clotting.
The most common cause of cerebral ischemic stroke is atherosclerosis – calcification, shrinking and occlusion of blood vessels because of high cholesterol level, age, smoking or other reasons. Most cases of atherosclerosis are resulted by stenosis of cervical artery. For this reason, it is very important to determine the cause of disease and remove it by cleaning arteries surgically.
At the age of 50, every person should check brain arteries using ultrasound. If they are at the same level, the same check should be repeated after 5 years. If there is at least a small narrowing of the arteries, you should do the check annually. In case of critical narrowing of the arteries, the patient should be immediately operated.
If you had ischemic stroke, you should continue checking the condition of your arteries constantly.