Stroke Recovery treatment
The largest percentage of patients seen by neurologists have cerebrovascular disease. The brain and spinal cord do not store nutrients and are quite sensitive to any interruption in the blood flow that supplies them. Obstruction to the flow of blood to the brain to spinal cord is most commonly due to emboli, which are particulate collections of clotted material, becoming lodged in small blood vessels. This causes neurologic dysfunction of the tissue that depends on the blocked vessel. The type of dysfunction is appropriate to the given area of the nervous system, usually the brain. For example, a clot in the area involved with speech causes difficulty in either understanding or producing speech, this category of symptoms is referred to as aphasia. Symptoms of cerebrovascular disease generally come on suddenly and reach their full extent severity quickly, within minutes. Sometimes the deficits produced are transient and completely resolve within 24 hours. Such an event is referred to as a transient ischemic attack. It the event lasts longer than 24 hours, it is referred to as a stroke. Changes seen on computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) support the clinical diagnostic impression.