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How many neurons did you lose during your stroke?


dreinke

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Within an hour of getting to the hospital I got tPA. It looks like I had 90 minutes from onset to tPA.

<b>So lost neurons = 171 million

lost synapses = 1260 billion

lost mylinated fibers = 675 miles

Lost 5.4 years in brain age.

</b>

In each minute, 1.9 million neurons, 14 billion synapses, and 12 km (7.5 miles) of myelinated fibers are destroyed. Compared with the normal rate of neuron loss in brain aging, the ischemic brain ages 3.6 years each hour without treatment.

It has been estimated that the adult brain has around one hundred billion neurons and an even larger number of glial cells.

And with the one neuron handling functions I should be able to handle that minute loss: href="http://oc1dean.blogspot.com/2011/04/single-neuron-power.html

 

This is something our doctors should be keeping track of, it would be a much better way of describing damage rather than mild, severe, catastrophic.

Someday this will be correlated with a 3d MRI and cubic volume of the stroke.

Considering my damage, my penumbra(partially damaged area) was also 171 million neurons. With that small a percentage dead and damaged I wonder why I was so close to dying.

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The damage here is measured in a lot of different ways, position determines what actions are lost, whether the stroke is on the surface or deep (you would know the proper terms for that),whether you were fit before the stroke.

 

There are other factors like the length of time before you got help, if you were in time to have Tpa or not.

 

I agree the number of neurons you lost can be determined but not the recovery you make. Some people have determination and some fold like a house of cards. Some have caregivers that drive them, some loving families who surround them with support. How will you measure that?

 

Even with a 3D image I don't think you could predict how much recovery a person will make Dean, that so depends on the will of the individual and the care and therapy they receive and make use of.

 

Sue.

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I know there is no predicting how much recovery persons can make. What I am trying to do here is to raise awareness that we don't have any common damage diagnosis. With no case studies available there is no way to even talk about strokes with each other. Persons hear about a recovery and immediately ask what they did to recover, assuming that they can do the same thing and recover. Its just one of the many things wrong with stroke rehabilitation and research. Unless someone wants to point out the naked emperor, that emperor will blithly go down the same failed path as before. :bouncing_off_wall: :head_hurts:

Dean

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Dean, you are singing my song here. Ray and I belong to a stroke recivery group. Ray is the only one in a wheelchair. A few of the newbie wives ask me if I have thought of getting him some physio! I then tell them he has had five strokes, 1990, 1999 (x2) 2001, 2005. I then list some of his medical conditions (if they are still standing).

 

You should see them go pale at the thought that their hubby could have more than the mild stroke he has recently had.

 

There is a lot of ignorance around, unfortunately some of it in the medical profession. I wish some of the neurologists would talk to the dementia specialists (as they are also experts in brain damage) and they would talk to the physiotherapists and then the nurses aides and maybe they could all talk to each other and pool their expertise and then maybe the theory and the practical would come together.

 

My rant for today...thanks for sharing as usual.

 

Sue.

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