Hi, I'm Cathy with LevelUpRN. In this video, we are going to talk about a stroke or
cerebrovascular accident. At the end of the video, I'm going to give you guys a little quiz, a little
knowledge check to test your understanding of some of the key points I'll be making in this video. So
definitely stay tuned for that. And as always, if you have our medical surgical nursing flashcards
definitely pull those out so you can follow along with me. With a stroke,
we have the sudden interruption of blood flow to the brain and this deprives the brain of
the oxygen and the nutrients that it needs. And this leads to brain tissue damage and necrosis.
So we have hemorrhagic strokes and ischemic strokes. With a hemorrhagic stroke, we have a
ruptured artery or aneurysm in the brain. Ischemic strokes are caused by a blood clot.
So we have a thrombotic stroke, which is where we have a blood clot in the cerebral artery,
or we have an embolic stroke, which is where a blood clot from another part of the body
travels up and blocks the cerebral artery. So this could be caused by a DVT, for example.
Risk factors associated with a stroke include smoking, hypertension, diabetes,
A-fib, hyperlipidemia, and a previous TIA, which is a transient ischemic attack. So with a TIA,
there is the temporary blockage of blood flow to the brain, and if a patient has had a TIA,
it places them at much higher risk for having a stroke in the future.
Symptoms of a stroke include unilateral limb weakness. So sudden weakness of the
arm or leg on one side. It can also cause facial drooping, slurred speech, dizziness,
as well as visual disturbances. If the patient has a stroke on the left side of the brain,
that can cause something called expressive aphasia. This means that the patient will have the
inability to speak or understand language. They may also have difficulty with reading and writing.
So our little cool chicken hint here on the card is left equals language. So if you have a stroke
on the left side, that can definitely impact the patient's language abilities. In addition,
if the patient had that stroke on the left side, that can cause right-sided weakness or paralysis.
So if you watched my AMP review of the nervous system, you know that the left side of the brain
controls movement on the right side of the body. So that's why with a left-sided stroke,
we have that paralysis or weakness on the right side of the body. If the patient had a stroke on
the right side of the brain, that can cause poor judgment and impulse control, it can cause the
patient to overestimate their abilities as well. So our little cool chicken hint here is that right
equals reckless, which means that the patient will have poor judgment if they have that right-sided
stroke. In addition, with a right-sided stroke, we are going to have left- sided weakness or
paralysis because the right side of the brain controls movement on the left side of the body.
Diagnosis of a stroke includes the use of a CT, an MRI, or a cerebral angiogram.
In terms of treatment, if the patient had an ischemic stroke, then we could use thrombolytic
agents such as Alteplase. However, we want to make sure we administer these thrombolytic
agents within three hours of the onset of symptoms, and that's important to remember.
Other medications for an ischemia stroke include anticoagulants as well as antiplatelets.
If the patient had a hemorrhagic stroke, then we would administer
antihypertensive agents to try to bring that blood pressure down and prevent any more blood loss or
minimize blood loss, at least. In terms of nursing care, we're going to want to implement fall
precautions because the patient will likely have paralysis or paralysis on one side of their body.
We want to assess their swallowing ability and their gag reflex before letting them
eat or drink anything. So if the patient has dysphagia, they may require thickened liquids.
And if they have dysphagia, we want to advise them to chuck-- tuck not chuck. Tuck their chin
against their chest to help facilitate swallowing. We also need to reposition our patients frequently
in order to prevent pressure injuries. And then if our patient has something called homonymous
hemianopsia, which means that they only see on one side of their visual field,
then we need to advise them to use what's called a scanning technique. So they would need
to scan the whole visual field in order to see everything, because if they don't scan, they're
just seeing one side of that visual field. All right. Time for a quiz. I have three
questions. First question, a temporary blockage of blood flow to the brain is called a blank.
The answer is a TIA or transient ischemic attack. Question number two,
a stroke on the left side of the brain can cause expressive aphasia. True or false?
The answer is true. So remember, left side language. Okay, question number three,
for an ischemic stroke, thrombolytics should be administered within blank hours of symptoms.
The answer is three. So they need to be administered within three hours of symptoms.
Okay, that's it. I hope you enjoyed this video and I hope it was helpful.
If so, make sure to like it and leave me a comment. Take care.