How would you explain stroke to a layman?
To put things in perspective, we need to understand what stroke is. Throughout our body we have pipes, and these pipes are called blood vessels. They take blood round our body. The life of a person is contained in the blood, when blood flow is impeded or blocked or the blood flows out you could be sure that somebody could die from it. So, blood is so important and why because the blood carries different nutrients like oxygen, and other nutrients that the cells need to survive. That is what happens. And these vessels, which I called pipes that go round our body, are different types. We have the arteries, we have the veins, and we have the capillaries. Those are just terminologies. But just know that we have pipes that are taken round our body, that’s the way our body is built, and these pipes carry blood and the blood contains nutrients that help to nourish ourselves.
What triggers the occurrence of stroke?
When a stroke happens it could be as a result of a burst of these vessels; that means a vessel burst. This is called hemorrhagic stroke or there is blockage of the vessel usually by clot. A clot is like congealed blood. This is called an embolic stroke. Stroke occurs in the brain, the brain is one of the most important organs in the body and it has what is called neurons which do not regenerate once they die depending on the extent of the death, depending on how fast one is able to reverse the damage. So, what I am saying is that stroke oc- curs in the brain and causes damage; the damage can be of different extent. What usually determines the extent of impairment? Supposing it is just a small part of a vessel that is blocked, the degree of im- pairment will be different from if you have a larger vessel that is blocked. So, that will explain why some people will recover com- pletely from a stroke and whereas some will never recover. Some may recover to a certain degree depend- ing on how fast one is able to reverse this damage that will cause stroke, damage to neurons of the brain that will cause stroke. And that is why there is this adage that time is a neuron. When stroke occurs and one is not able to intervene fast, neurons die and aside that they don’t regenerate; so, when the neurons die, depending on how many that died, depending on the extent of death, this will determine the impairment that the person has. How would you react to an assertion that traditional medicine works better for stroke cure? If you are saying traditional medicine works better, it may just be that this person has just small damage to the brain, that is just a small blockage or a small bleed into the brain and then the person recov- ers. And then there are also different levels of stroke as I said, sometimes there are things that occur before the real stroke happens and that is like a warning sign and this could also present like a stroke but the person will recover within 24 hours. So, if they take that kind of per- son who is just having the warning sign of stroke, to the traditional healers and the person recovers they will say this person has re- covered from stroke but ac- tually what the person had was just warning sign and I said that the warning sign looks exactly like stroke but the recovery time is different. It could be 24 hours for the warning sign and longer for stroke. What could be responsible for those who recover partially or totally from stroke? I think I have also answered that. To summarise what I have said in the first part, depending on the ex- tent of this blockage or bleed into the brain, which means if somebody has a smaller blockage or a smaller bleed the person could recover totally. If somebody has a larger one, then the person may never recover totally and then those that have bleeding, they are more likely to recover totally from stroke than those that had block- age. What I am saying is those that had a blockage to the brain are less likely to recover from a stroke than those that have a bleed to the brain. That means when you are looking at a prognosis, that is the outcome, will there be recovery? A person that has a bleed which is called hemorrhage is more likely to recover totally from the stroke than somebody that has a blockage no mat- ter how small the blockage is. A blockage of the vessel is called an embolus; so some- body that has an embolic stroke is less likely to recover and will usually have some permanent deficit than those that have a bleed into the brain, which I called hemor- rhagic stroke and depending on also the size which I have explained before, could also determine if recovery will be partial or total.
How can you recognise a stroke? A loss of function; when function is lost, what do I mean?
This person is not able to move his arm or the leg or is not able to speak, or is not able to smile, or is not able to eat, the person may start drooling saliva all of a sudden; those are some of the symptoms of stroke. The warning signs of stroke are also similar to what I have said but the recovery part is faster, less than 24 hours. And when they do a test that is to take a picture of the brain, which is called a computer tomography scan, there is no damage seen in the brain. That is how you know that this is a warning sign and that is how the person fully recovers. Someone that has a warning sign for stroke, it means that the person could have a stroke very soon. So, the person needs to change their lifestyle and take precautions so as not come down fully with stroke.
Can someone who has had a stroke have it the second time?
The answer is yes; the fact that somebody has had a stroke before predisposes the person to having a stroke again because the things that make that stroke to happen are still very present and so such a person can have it again. Then what could be responsible for that? I have explained that the factors that cause the first stroke to happen are usually still there.
What are some of these factors?
The person may have hypertension, diabetes, and the person may have what you call dyslipidemia that is cholesterol imbalance or very high cholesterol. These are just some common factors that can lead to stroke. How many years can a stroke patient live after recovering from it? How many years depend on how that person is taken care of, and depending on the type of stroke the per- son had; those are the things that will determine how long the person will live. So, if somebody has had a stroke and the person is taken to a capable medical centre and intervention is done or also if this person had just an hemorrhagic stroke and fully recovers, the person will definitely live long. But if the person had a very big embolic stroke, that is a very big blockage to the pipes or vessels that are in the brain with what you call deficit, it may reduce the life span of such a survival. In summary, it depends on the extent, the type of stroke and the kind of intervention the person had after having the stroke. The person also needs to continue the treatment plan that has been given to him or her. Can there be a synergy between orthodox and traditional medicine in the management of stroke patients? Well, there is none that I am aware of. There is no such collaboration between orthodox and traditional medicine in Nigeria at present that I a
