Hello and welcome to the Zero to Finals podcast. My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be

talking to you about stroke. And if you want to follow along with written notes on this topic,

you can follow along at zero definals.com slash stroke or in the neurology section of the

zero to finals medicine book. So let's get straight into it.

Stroke is also referred to as cerebrosevascular accident or CVA. And this cerebro

refers to the brain, vascular reverse to the blood vessels, and the accident refers to the fact that

there's a problem within the blood vessels. Cerebral vascular accidents are either eschemia or

infarction of the brain tissue, which is secondary to inadequate blood supply, or intracranial

hemorrhage. So cerebral vascular accidents can either mean an acute ischemic event

or an intracranial hemorrhage.

Ischemia or infarction is caused by disruption to the blood supply

and this can be caused by a thrombus formation or an embolus.

For example, in patients who have atrial fibrillation where a thrombus formation or an embolus, for example, in patients who have atrial fibrillation

where a thrombus forms within the left atrium and then travels up to the brain where it gets

lodged and blocks off the blood supply. It can also be caused by atherosclerosis within the blood

vessels and the brain. It can be caused by shock, but if the blood pressure

falls throughout the body and not enough blood is getting to the brain, that can cause

aschemia of the brain tissue. And it can also be caused by vasculitis. So certain inflammatory

conditions that affect the blood vessels, which we call vasculitis, can lead to a stroke.

A separate condition called a transient ischemic attack, or a TIA, was originally defined as symptoms

of a stroke that resolve within 24 hours. This definition has been updated based on advanced

imaging, and it's now defined as a transient

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