Question

Your nurse manager has asked you to present at next month’s staff meeting. Lately the unit has had an increase in the number of stroke patients admitted to your unit. Several staff members have had questions regarding strokes. Your job is to create an outline of what information you want to include in the presentation. Some of the areas your manager has asked you to focus on are:

1. The signs and symptoms of a stroke.

2. The different types of strokes

3. Treatment options for the various kinds of strokes

Answer 1

Answers

  Stroke

        Stroke is a medical emergency condition in which the stroke will occurs when there will be a reduction of blood supply to the part of the brain and the brain cells begin to die within minutes.

Causes of the stroke includes:

· High blood pressure

· History of Heart diseases

· Diabetes mellitus

· Use of Tobacco

Types of stroke

    Mainly there are five types of strokes such as:

1. Ischemic stroke- This stroke will occur due to the obstruction in a vessel which supplying the blood to the brain. The obstruction is mainly due to the fatty deposits in the lining of the vessels.

2. Hemorrhagic stroke-This stroke occurs when a weakened vessel near the brain become rupture and bleeds in to the surrounding brain. This blood will accumulate and compress the brain tissue.

The two types of hemorrhagic stroke are:

· Intracerebral hemorrhage- Occurs when the artery in the blood will rupture and bleeds to the surrounding brain tissue.

· Subarachnoid hemorrhage- Occurs by the bulging of the blood vessel and rupture to the brain.

3.TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack)-This stroke is a warning sig for major stroke. This will often know as mini stroke. In this stroke there will be a temporary blockage of blood flow to the brain.

4. Cryptogenic shock- In this type of stroke, the stroke will occur without the known cause.

Signs and Symptoms

· Sudden trouble in the walking and loss of balance

· Lack of coordination

· Severe headache with no known cause

· Vision trouble in one or both eyes

· Sudden confusion and speaking trouble

· Difficulty in understanding the speech

· Sudden numbness and weakness in the face arm and legs especially in one side of the body.

Treatment

           Ischemic stroke

· Restore the breathing, heart rate and blood pressure to normal before giving the treatment.

· The main treatment of Ischemic stroke is the intravenous tissue plasminogen activator which helps to break the clots in the vessel.

· If the tPA fails, then the clots should remove through surgery by removing the clot through a stent retriever.

· Long term intake of Aspirin or an anticoagulant to prevent further clots.

           Hemorrhagic stroke

· The focus of the treatment is to control the bleeding and reducing the pressure in the brain.

· Administration of blood thinning medications to prevent the blood clots

· Administration of drugs to lower the blood pressure, prevent spasms of the blood vessels and to prevent seizures.

· Surgery may be preferred if the bleeding is large to repair the blood vessels associate with hemorrhagic stroke.

· A surgical clamp will use at the base of the aneurysm to stop the blood flow.

              TIA (Transient Ischemic attack)

· The focus of the treatment is to decrease the risk for stroke after a TIA.

· Administration of anti-platelet medication such as aspirin to make the platelets less likely to stick together.

· Anticoagulants such as warfarin and heparin will helps to act on the clotting system proteins function to prevent the clotting.

· Surgical procedure include carotid endarterectomy will perform to remove the plaques.

· Carotid angioplasty is an option for treating TIA.