What is a Stroke?

Stroke is a brain attack and one form of the cerebrovascular disease intimidating individuals in our societies. Cognitive impairment (Jokinen, 2015), Upper-extremity motor deficit (Woytowicz, 2017), speech impairment (yourganov, 2016), neurological deterioration (lattanzi, 2017), apraxia inability to accomplish specific purposive actions, as a result of brain injury. (K Salter, 2016), post-stroke depression (CJ Winstein, 2016) and physical impairments (hirakawa, 2018) are some of the main symptoms for the stroke patients.    

Stroke may be caused either by blocked arteries, which is called ischemic stroke or bursting or leaking of blood vessels, which is called hemorrhagic stroke, and or a temporary disruption of blood flow to the brain which is called transient ischemic attack (TIA) that is not causing permanent damages (CJ Winstein, 2016).

According to WHO the definition of stroke in epidemiological research is ‘‘rapidly developing clinical signs of focal (at times, global) disturbances of cerebral function, lasting more than 24 hours or leading to death with no apparent cause other than that of vascular origin’’ (WHO MONICA, 1988).