Strokes usually affect older people, but statistics reveal a rise in the number of young people infected in recent years. What is worrying is that they can hit athletes by surprise, what are the reasons?
When parts of the brain are not supplied with enough blood and no oxygen is supplied, a person has a stroke, where some areas of the brain lose their functions, the consequences are usually paraplegia, which can extend from the face to the fingertips. The patient rarely recovers completely. In the worst case, the functions of central life are affected and the stroke ends with death.
Most often, a fatal brain blood perfusion disorder occurs in old age only as a result of vascular calcification or atherosclerosis. Most patients have the usual risk factors for their blood vessels: obesity, smoking and high blood pressure.
Height
But in recent years, doctors have noted an increase in the number of stroke patients under the age of 50. Every year in Germany alone, about 30,000 men and women are infected with the so-called "youth stroke".
Working causes of strokes include an unhealthy lifestyle, lack of movement, obesity since childhood and smoking.
What is terrifying among young people is that people who are slim, exercise and non-smokers are healthy until they have a stroke.
This prompted a team of German researchers from the University of Munich headed by Dr. Lars Kellert to a study on the incidence of stroke between the ages of 18 and 55 years.
According to the magazine "Focus" German, what distinguishes strokes in young people do not reach doctors by 30-50% to a concrete cause of the deficit in the supply of blood areas of the brain. In 25% of cases, strokes are caused by a blood clot that is pushed through the heart to the brain.
Dissection
In 20% of strokes in younger young people, spontaneous dissection, the split of the inner wall of the neck artery that supplies oxygen-bearing blood, can be detected. As a type of space is closed between the inner and middle layers of the artery, the blood collects in this space to create a so-called hematoma that closes the artery.
This can affect “spontaneous dissection”, who do not move too much and are poorly fed and those who exercise. A strong, rapid movement during exercise can lead to rupture of the artery. Others may have a small movement in daily life to rupture the artery as well, the study says.
It is not yet known whether poor fungal connective tissue, or a weakened vascular wall due to infections, is responsible for "spontaneous dissection".
According to the study, 10% of strokes among young people are due to rare causes, such as vasculitis.
Quick Care
According to the newspaper "Südkurier" German the main factor in the treatment of stroke is the rapid care in the stroke unit, the faster the treatment, the less permanent effects of the stroke, and not provide any food to the patient to avoid suffocation and raise the head up and in cases of fainting must be placed his side.
Young people also have a great advantage: younger people recover faster than others, and in 30% of cases all the effects disappear completely. But 5% end up dying, he says. Kellert, compared to 30% among older people. The study also found that 40% of young people with stroke can return to their old workplace, while a third remain unemployed.