When there is an interruption of blood supply in the brain, it results to a stroke to the person. It can be caused by heart problems, or clogged arteries due to cholesterol, or even substance abuse. Mini-strokes often do not cause permanent damage and can resolve within 24 hours, but the bigger ones can be catastrophic.
The analyses suggest that coronavirus patients are suffering the most deadly type of stroke. The LOV or the large vessel occlusions can damage large parts of the brain responsible for movement, speech, and decision-making in one blow because they are located in the main blood-supplying arteries.
Stroke surge
Doctors from New York and Philadelphia said that a surge of young coronavirus patients are suffering the deadly strokes and it has caused fear that the killer virus could have caused blood clots in the brain. In a study in 15 medical centers over three weeks, 40% of the LVO admissions were COVID-19 patients under 50 wherein the average age for severe stroke is 74.
Another team conducted a separate research on 124 COVID-19 patients treated at hospitals in Wuhan, China had found 36% of the patients had neurological symptoms like impaired consciousness or blood clots in the brain.
Several researchers believe that strokes may be caused by blood problems that are producing clots all over the body. Clots that are formed near the heart might cause a heart attack to the patient and may eventually cause death. Since clots form on vessel walls fly upward, they might also be going to the brain leading to a stroke.
COVID-19 appears to result in mild illness with the risk of having more severe consequences with every decade of age added in most young coronavirus patients. -Strokes in COVID-19 patients challenge conventional thinking, according to Jabbour and his co-author Eytan Raz, an assistant professor of neurology at New York University Langone. It is rare to see patients in their 50s, 40s and late 30s dying of strokes, they added.
They have been seeing clots in the veins among coronavirus patients that is different from usual cases in which clots are found in arteries. Some patients are even developing more than one large clot in their heads which is highly unusual. They will go treat the patient because of the clot, and then suddenly the patient experiences a major stroke because of another large clot in some part of the brain.
The 33-year old woman
Physician-researcher J Mocco said that the number of patients coming in with large blood blockages in the brain at Mount Sinai the largest medical in New York City, has doubled during the three weeks of the COVID-19 surge.
The Mount Sinai details five cases of young patients who had strokes at home from March 23 to April 7. The patients' ages are 33, 37, 39, 44, and 49. Among the five patients, one has died, two were hospitalized, one was released to rehabilitation, and one was released home to the care of a family member.
But out of the five patients, only one could speak- the 33-year-old woman. According to reports, the woman was previously healthy but had a cough and suffering from headaches for a week. Over 28 hours, she noticed that she was going numb and weak on her left side, and her speech slurry. It turns out, she was already infected by coronavirus.
When she decided to go to the hospital, the doctors already found two clots in her brain and patchy "ground glass" in her lungs. She received two types of therapy to break up the clots and by the tenth day, she has already recovered.
It is important to understand that large strokes are treatable as doctors often able to reopen blocked blood vessels through techniques such as pulling out clots or inserting stents. So, if the patients already have symptoms of stroke, they must call the ambulance immediately to prevent major problems.
