Blood clots in the head - symptoms, cause and therapy

Blood clots: These are the first signs!

A blood clot consists of clotted blood and forms, for example, in injuries. Blood clotting is vital to help calm blood flow and prevent bleeding. But these "wound closures" can be fatal if they clog blood vessels that supply vital organs with blood - such as in the head.

contents

• Blood clots: These are the first signs!
• The most important facts - an overview
• symptoms
• The F-A-S-T test
• Causes of blood clots
• Heart defects and tumors
• accidents
• Suck out clots
• The lysis therapy
• Local and systemic thrombolysis
• The secondary prophylaxis
• surgery
• Long-term consequences
• disease
• forecast
• swell

The most important facts - an overview

• Blood clots consist of clotted blood.
• While such clots serve to stop blood loss, they are fatal in the veins of the brain. If they clog blood here, the brain is no longer oxygen and it threatens a stroke.
• A stroke announces itself with paralysis, language problems and movement disorders. With these symptoms, those affected need immediate medical attention, because every minute harms the brain more.
• Blood clots in the head often end in death, many survivors suffer from damage to severe paralysis.

Blood clots consist of clotted blood. Blood clotting is vital because it helps to stop blood flow in case of injury. However, if blood vessels clog, it can have fatal consequences. (Image: freshidea / fotolia.com)

symptoms

Blood clots in the brain can lead to a stroke. Symptoms include:

• A sudden paralysis, usually on one side of the body,
• lack of strength in legs and arms,
• a one-sided feeling of deafness,
• blurred vision,
• disturbed balance,
• dizziness,
• Speech disorders such as mumbling or speech loss,
• Loss of consciousness,
• strong headache,
• Uncertainty when walking and standing.

How pronounced are the symptoms?

How pronounced the symptoms are with a blood clot in the head depends on which brain region the clot sits in. However, if the symptoms listed above occur, you must always contact an emergency doctor or emergency medical service immediately.

By no means all blood clots in the head lead to a stroke. For example, even without a stroke (cerebral infarction), short visual disturbances can occur, such as double vision or eye flickering. Even then you should seek immediate medical attention.

The F-A-S-T test

With the F-A-S-T test you can check if it is a stroke.

• F - Face: Here you ask the person concerned to smile. With a half-sided facial paralysis this is not possible.
• A - Arms: Ask the patient to raise their arms at the same time. Here it shows if the arms are paralyzed.
• S - Speech: Let sufferers speak simple sentences. A slurred language speaks for a stroke.
• T - Time: Call an ambulance immediately even if there is little suspicion. Every minute counts.

Causes of blood clots

Blood clots arise in different ways. In case of injury, the body reacts to the stimulus. The blood vessels constrict to slow the blood flow. In the damaged tissue, the platelets become active - the platelets. These collect on the wound and form a plug that closes them. On top of this, proteins harden the seal and protect the wound from bacteria, viruses, fungi and other contaminants.

Injuries that cause a blood clot are not necessarily external. In arteriosclerosis, platelets may stick together as a result of damaged inner walls of the vessel. (Image: peterschreiber.media/fotolia.com)

Injuries do not have to be external. Damaged inner walls of vessels, for example in arteriosclerosis, can also adhere to platelets.

Even without injury, these clots develop when blood flows slowly or accumulates. As a result, platelets also accumulate and clog the veins.

Heart defects and tumors

Heart defects promote blood clots - especially the cardiac arrhythmia and atrial fibrillation. Here, the blood is so confused that blood clots may arise, not in the head, but in the atrium of the heart.

Tumors and congenital mutations cause the blood to clot too quickly and clump it into clots.

accidents

After bone fractures, surgery and serious illnesses, those affected often move the corresponding body part less. Skull fractures or fractures of the cervical spine cause the head to hardly lift, lower or rotate. This also breaks the muscles that usually squeeze the veins, transporting the blood back to the heart ...

If this pressure of the muscles is missing, the blood flows back slower and accumulates in the veins. Now it comes to a congestion, platelets and coagulants accumulate. Here, a blood clot can form in the head.

In addition, blood congestion in other parts of the body can lead to blood clots in the head. Parts of a thrombosis can dissolve and migrate through the bloodstream, into the vessels that feed the head.

For several years, blood clots in the head are extracted using a stent. This procedure is also called mechanical thrombectomy. (Image: Crystal light / fotolia.com)

Suck out clots

A few years ago, a new procedure established to remove dangerous blood clots in the head. It's called mechanical thrombectomy. In practice, this opens the closed vessel in nine out of ten patients. So-called stents catch the clots in a kind of basket. They suck it in a way.

Originally these stents in Germany were intended to treat aneurysms of the cerebral vessels. They are suitable for clots that clog large cerebral arteries. The stent is a tiny device made of wire and presses the clot to the vessel wall. The clumped platelets migrate to the inside of the "basket" and are now pulled out "like a trapped fish". The stent is pushed over a catheter to the brain.

The lysis therapy

This is the conventional therapy to clear a blood clot in the head. Here, a drug (recombinant tissue plasminogen activator) is passed through the appropriate vein into the bloodstream. The drug dilutes the blood and dissolves the clot.

Local and systemic thrombolysis

How the lysis therapy can be used depends on the time. A systemic thrombolysis in which the drug passes through the bloodstream is possible up to four and a half hours after the onset of stroke. A local treatment, in which doctors push a catheter to the blood clot and use the coagulation remover directly there, is still possible up to six hours after the attack.

The secondary prophylaxis

If you have a tendency to clot, secondary prophylaxis helps to prevent it. If you are at greater risk you should take this therapy for a lifetime. The best-known drug for this is aspirin.

surgery

A blood clot in the head can be operated on only a few affected people. This operation is laborious and risky. Minor errors can trigger brain injuries, resulting in life-long disabilities, depending on the location of the clot, from speech loss to motor problems, paralysis, loss of consciousness, or loss of mental ability.

To be able to operate at all, the clot must be in the vicinity of larger vessels, otherwise surgeons can not reach it.

Long-term consequences

Blood clots in the head can cause long-term damage. How big these are is due to the affected brain region as well as how long the area was not supplied with blood. Ischemic attacks are relatively harmless. Here it comes to motor misfires, which regress after about 24 hours.

Long-term damage caused by a blood clot in the head, for example, serious disturbances in speech. (Image: victorpr / fotolia.com)

More serious are the disturbances in speaking and swallowing. These suffer from around 70 percent of all those affected, and many of them remain in the long run. Defects in memory and concentration are often anchored in the long term. This also applies to paralysis.

Last but not least, new diseases can be the result of a stroke. This includes a specific form of epilepsy.

disease

The course of the disease varies among patients. If the therapy is successful, those affected almost always spend time in a rehabilitation clinic. Experts from various disciplines work together to give patients a way back into everyday life. Physio- and ergotherapists train movements and coordination, speech therapists the disturbances in speaking and swallowing.

Very often, a stroke also causes depression. Therefore, in a rehab clinic always psychological / psychotherapeutic help is offered. (Image: Syda Productions / fotolia.com)

There is also psychological / psychotherapeutic help. A very common consequence of strokes are moderate to severe depression. Usually, those affected remain in a rehab clinic for four to six weeks.

forecast

A blood clot in the head is a serious matter. The prognosis depends on the location of the event and the duration of the shortage of the brain. One in five people dies in the first month after the stroke. Of the survivors, 50 percent suffer permanent damage to varying degrees, such as speech disorders, paralysis or memory loss. Many are dependent on long-term care. The less brain mass was damaged, the better the chances of recovery are (Dr Utz Anhalt)

swell

• https://www.aerztekammer-bw.de/news/2013/2013_03/schlaganfall_04/index.html
• http://www.deutsche-gefaessliga.de/index.php/gefaesserkrankungen/thrombose-und-lungenembolie
• https://www.leading-medicine-guide.de/Herz-Gefaesse/Thrombektomie
• https://www.neurologen-und-psychiater-im-netz.org/neurologie/erkrankungen/schlaganfall/diagnostik/
• https://www.phlebology-guide.com/erkrankungen/thrombose/
• http://radiologie.charite.de/static/pdf/Bauknecht_042014.pdf