Stroke Center
Patients with stroke should be treated at a Stroke Center.
Time restriction for treatment of patients with acute stroke leads to a need for a hospital organization and experienced, specialist team work to ensure that treatment is started following a quick and meticulous evaluation. This can only be possible with “Stroke Centers” founded for this purpose. The Stroke Center is one of the most important constituents not only in emergency treatments but also in early rehabilitation therapies provided for the patients.
What is Stroke?
Stroke occurs when the critical blood and oxygen supply to the brain is suddenly interrupted or reduced due to vascular occlusion. Sometimes, it is manifested by bleeding into the cerebral tissue. When blood flow ceases, the cells start to die quickly at this location and temporary or permanent losses of function, also called paralysis, emerge at the location of the stroke.
Treatment of Stroke is a Race against Time
To prevent the death of brain cells and spread of the damage, vascular occlusion should be immediately eliminated. Quick treatment means early and fast recovery in the stroke.
Intravenous Thrombolysis
A drug that breaks up clots is administered into a vein and is useful if it can be administered not later than the first 4.5 hours after symptoms of stroke emerge.
Thrombectomy
The blood clot located in the vessel is removed using a special retractable stent with femoral angiography, similar to eliminating the occlusion of a coronary artery in heart attacks. It should be performed quickly within the first 6 hours after the stroke. It can be employed up to the first 24 hours after the stroke in patients with intact and/or protectable brain tissue shown by special brain imaging modalities.
Various Disciplines Serve Patients at the Cerebral Angiography and Stroke Center
The stroke team consists of neurologists, interventional neurologists, interventional neuroradiologists, experienced stroke nurses, neuroangiography technicians, physiatrists, physiotherapists, and speech and language, swallowing, and occupational therapists.
This team cooperates very closely with emergency medicine, neurosurgery, anesthesiology and reanimation, cardiology, and neurology physicians.
Certain Therapies Practiced at the Cerebral Angiography and Stroke Center For Neurovascular Occlusive Diseases:
- Intravenous thrombolysis (an intravenous drug that breaks up clots)
- Thrombectomy (angiographic removal of clot)
- Stent therapy, which is an effective way to prevent recurrence of stroke, is used for stenoses of coronary arteries and other vessels feeding the brain. The treatment is based on inserting a stent – wire cages – and dilating the stenotic segment.
Hemorrhagic Neurovascular Diseases
The aneurysm that develops in deep parts of the brain is accessed with angiographic methods; the cerebral tissue is untouched, and the lumen of the aneurysm is filled or a stent is placed to repair the condition.
Angiographic occlusive treatments of abnormal vascular plexuses (Arteriovenous malformation - AVM) and fistulas - also called arteriovenous fistula (AVF) - that may result in cerebral hemorrhage aim to prevent the first or recurrent hemorrhages which are likely to happen in the future.