Diagnosis and Tests of Stroke
October 6th, 2007 by Aaks
Overview of Stroke
Facts about Stroke
Causes of Stroke
Symptoms of Stroke
Types of Stroke
Diagnosis and Tests of Stroke
Treatment of Stroke
Diagnosis and Tests of Stroke
The treatment of a disease varies according to diseases, and many diseases have the same kind of symptoms to a large extent. This shows that a diagnosis and test for the specific disease is to be taken before resorting to treatment methods pertaining to a specific disease. This holds even better in case of fatal diseases like Stroke. The testing and diagnosis of Stroke involves the following
- The first and foremost things the doctor should do is to verify whether you have the possibility of getting stroke. So he should necessarily do a physical test on you to get a outline of your body conditions. He may test your body externally by means of stethoscope or other devices to know whether your arteries and heart are in good condition. Also he can have the cholesterol levels, sugar levels, blood pressure levels etc.
- Then the doctor needs to get a clear picture of the arteries, and the arteriography technique helps it. Here a slender tube is inserted into specific artery from specific areas in your body, and dye is inserted through it and an X-ray image of it is obtained.
- The other important technique used initially is computerized tomography, which is used in the same way as the arteriography, provides a three dimensional image of the blood vessels. This is used in identifying any abnormalities in them and to identify the aneurysms associated with the important arteries. It is also used for getting a clear image of the brain to help in identifying blood spills and clots in any regions of concern.
The important thing in diagnosis is to identify the type of Stroke because the treatments for each of them are distinct and unique and the mixing up of them leads to severe or even fatal impacts.
- The other important and most prevalent techniques in the diagnosis of stroke used in later stages include carotid ultrasound or Doppler scan, echocardiogram, Holter monitoring, magnetic resonance imaging etc. Each of these tests have their own specific functions and characteristics and are aimed at having a clear picture of the brain, blood vessels. Echocardiography is a technique used in getting a clear picture of the blood stream across the whole body, and identifying clots. The esophagus is used to help us to get such a clear picture.
- The doctor also analyses some other risk factors that can cause Stroke and their possibilities, to make a good attempt at preventing any further attacks.
Thus we see the amount of work involved in order to diagnose a Stroke and the treatment follows after this! It’s obvious that such a diagnosis is time consuming and takes a lot of resources and has a great mental impact on every one related to the affected person. It becomes more clear that prevention is better than cure in the case of Stroke!
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