Are you experiencing a sudden numbness or weakness on one side of your face, arm, or
leg?
How about sudden and inexplicable trouble walking, talking, or understanding speech?
You may be having a stroke.
Hello everyone!
Crystal here for DNews ready to talk about one of the medical emergencies that scares
me the most.
Stroke.
A “stroke” can occur at anytime to anyone, and there are two types that can happen.
The most common is when a clot in your blood vessels blocks the flow of blood to the brain,
but strokes can also happen when internal bleeding in or around the brain creates swelling
and pressure, compressing and damaging brain tissue..
Strokes often result in permanent impairments such as paralysis, loss of sensory function,
problems thinking, speaking, or even regulating emotions, and they are a leading cause of
long term disability.
According to the CDC, almost 130,000 people in the US die each year from strokes.
Besides muscle weakness and trouble walking, talking and understanding speech, other symptoms
can include loss of balance, disorientation, and difficulty seeing out of one or both eyes.
So what should you do if you or someone near you is experiencing the symptoms?
Call 911 and get medical attention immediately.
Studies show that receiving treatment within 3 hours can significantly reduce the severity
of damage and disability.
The longer the brain is starved of oxygen and nutrients, though, the greater the damage
that occurs.
Currently treatments used by medical professionals can prevent additional damage from occurring,
but they can’t heal the brain.
Brain injury is a difficult problem for scientists because unlike damage to the skin or other
organs, the brain does not simply regenerate.
Most neuronal cell damage is permanent and that’s what makes conditions like concussion
and strokes so scary.
But researchers say there may be a little hope -- from stem cells.
Stem cells are a type of cell that have the ability to “differentiate”, or change,
into a specialized set of cells that belong to specific tissue like skin, bone, or brain.
In a recent paper published in the journal Nature Medicine, scientists from University
of Southern California took a look at a specific protein in the blood, called activated protein
C. They found that a special type of the protein tells human neuronal stem cells to change
into functional neurons.
To determine if this could regenerate lost brain function in stroke patients, researchers
tested mice that had suffered stroke.
They wanted to see if the mice could recover lost function when treated with human stem
cells and this special signaling protein.
And the cool thing is, it worked.
Not only did the protein help with survival and growth of the neuronal stem cells, but
the new cells helped the mice better perform diagnostic motor and sensory motor tasks like
walking on a beam and removing an annoying piece of tape from the bottom of their foot.
Even cooler, the mice weren’t treated until seven whole days after their strokes -- which,
if you remember, is significantly longer than the three hours we currently think of as the
critical window for treatment.
Now you can argue that healing mice isn’t necessarily the medical breakthrough we need
for human brain injury, but it's a meaningful step.
And this therapy is currently in clinical trials, so it may be that soon we will be
able to offer stroke patients improvements to lost function after days or weeks.
I think we will all agree that the best case scenario for strokes is to not have one.
Strokes are linked to heart disease and diabetes, so the best thing we can all do to avoid a
stroke of bad luck is continue the healthy behaviors we know we should be doing anyway:
stop smoking, eat healthful, nutrient rich foods, avoid high sugar and high fat in your
diet, and exercise.
That’s easy, you’re all totally doing that anyway, you’ve got nothing to worry
about, you’ll be fine.
If you’re really into health issues and have tips for staying healthy, why not set
up a website to talk about them.
No domain extension will help you tell your story like a DOT COM or DOT NET domain name.
And because you watch DNews, you can get 15% off Domain Dot Com’s names and web hosting
by using the code DNews when you check out.
If you want to learn more about stem cells and why they may change the medical world,
you can check out this video by Julia that addresses the promise and controversy of stem
cell research.
Are there any other medical emergencies you want to know about?
I'd love find out more for you, so let me know in the comments and be sure to subscribe
to DNews so you can see the answer!