What’s the best treatment for stroke patients?
A stroke diagnosis is extremely time sensitive. Right after an emergency, the medical team focuses on determining the situation. Their primary concern is assessing what type of stroke you or your loved one might be having.
But the recovery period after being discharged from the hospital is crucial. The drugs and surgical procedures might carry many side effects.
We will break down the alternatives so you may better understand the most viable options and determine what’s the best treatment for stroke patients.
What happens at the hospital right after someone suffers a stroke?
You’ll immediately get a CT scan or some sort of imaging test. The imaging test will give your doctors a clear view to determine what’s exactly happening. The medical team will also try to rule out other causes for existing symptoms (drug abuse, brain tumor, etc) so they can determine what will be the best treatment for stroke patients.
There are two main types of strokes:
ischemic strokes
hemorrhagic strokes
What’s the difference between ischemic stroke treatment and hemorrhagic stroke treatment?
Treatment for stroke will depend on whether it involves bleeding or not. The best treatment for stroke patients involves emergency procedures that are determined based on whether the patient is having an ischemic stroke or a hemorrhagic stroke.
types of strokes
Hemorrhagic Stroke Treatment
Controlling the bleeding is the primary concern when treating a hemorrhagic stroke. Primarily, the doctor wants to reduce the pressure in the brain that’s caused by the excess fluid (blood). A patient will arrive at the emergency room and immediately be placed under careful supervision and analysis.
Options for immediate emergency treatment:
- Direct Emergency Measures
- Surgery
- Surgical Clipping
- Coiling (endovascular embolization)
- Surgical AVM Removal
- Stereotactic Radiosurgery
types of strokes
Ischemic Stroke
During a stroke, the brain ceases to receive sufficient blood flow. The medical team’s primary concern is to return this blood flow to the brain.
- Emergency Recombinant Tissue Plasminogen Activator
- Emergency endovascular procedures
- Medication directly to the brain
- Removing the clot with stent retriever
- Carotid Endarterectomy
- Angioplasty and Stents
What’s the best treatment for stroke patients after they’re discharged from the hospital?
The medical team will be closely monitoring you or your loved one after emergency procedures. You can expect to stay at the hospital for 1-2 days after you’ve recovered consciousness and they’ve returned the blood flow to your brain.
Immediately after stabilizing the patient, the main focus for doctors is to determine the brain tissue damage. Tissue damage resulting from a stroke will vary and depend on what region of the brain was affected.
If the patient experiences damage on the right side of the brain, the left side of the body will be affected (movement and sensation will be impacted). If the damage was to the left side of the brain, the right side of the body will likely suffer.
Stroke patients will begin a rehabilitation program that usually involves the following specialists:
- Doctor trained in brain conditions (neurologist)
- Rehabilitation doctor (physiatrist)
- Dietitian
- Physical therapist
- Occupational therapist
- Recreational therapist
- Speech pathologist
- Social worker or case manager
- Psychologist or psychiatrist
- Spiritual guide
Your body will attempt to tap into its own healing power to reverse the brain damage caused by the stroke.
Stem cells contribute to the healing process of your stroke recovery. The powerful regenerative benefits will help your brain heal itself. Patients who receive stem cells immediately after they’re stabilized from a stroke will see the best results. The best treatment for stroke patients becomes dependent on time sensitiveness. Time is of the essence, the patient stands to gain a huge advantage over other treatment alternatives if they receive it right after they’re stabilized.
What results can a stroke patient expect from stem cell treatment?
As you know, a stroke causes millions of brain neurons to die within minutes. The tissue that remains alive but non-functioning after a stroke is located around the dead area of these dead cells.
Stem cell therapy targets the area that is non-functioning (but still alive) and rejuvenates the tissue. The reviving qualities of stem cells help reverse the damage (although not completely) caused by the stroke.
Time is of the essence. The optimal time for receiving stem cells after a stroke is between 36 and 72 hours after it happened.
For example, at Novastem, we had a great success story of a stroke patient that spent about a week in the hospital where doctors were trying to stabilize him.
His family was well aware of the powerful healing properties of stem cell therapy and how successful it can be with a stroke patient.
Immediately after his discharge from the hospital, his family rushed him to our clinic. He was well within the optimal time range.
The stroke had left him with slurred speech and he wasn’t able to walk. After the stem cell treatment conducted in Novastem, he immediately felt better.
Within a week he was able to walk, talk and well on his way to regaining much of the mobility and physical freedom he had lost after he suffered his stroke.
If you’re interested in watching a video testimonial you can click here.
What results can a patient expect if they suffered a stroke outside the optimal time for stem cell therapy?
A patient may still find huge benefits from stem cell therapy even if they undergo treatment after 72 hours.
We can’t expect the same results when so much time has passed, but the quality of life of the patient can definitely improve after more than 3 days of having a stroke (some patients have reported improvements years after the stroke).
For example, a patient that visited us from Canada had suffered a stroke years before she got here.
In fact, she even went through a period where she got several “mini-strokes” after the fact.
As a result of all of these sad events, she had lost her vision and was unable to walk unassisted.
When she received stem cell therapy at Novastem, she was able to regain her vision which represented a colossal improvement for her quality of life.
If you or your loved one experienced a stroke and would like to know if stem cell therapy will work for you, the first step is to contact our team and share some details about your condition.
Our medical team will ask you a series of questions in order to determine if you or your loved one will benefit from stem cell therapy.
Conclusion
Stem cells are soon becoming the best treatment for stroke patients so they may recover from the consequences of losing blood flow to the brain.
Although it is important to receive stem cell therapy for stroke during the optimal time period (36 to 72 hours after it happened) there are many benefits that may still represent an improvement to the quality of life of a patient even years after.
The best way to determine if you or your loved one/s stroke case will benefit from stem cell therapy is to schedule a consultation with our team.
There are still many ways stem cells will benefit human health, but for now we can conclude that it’s considered one of the best treatments for stroke patients available today.
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