 Hi, I'm Dr. Chetan, Consultant Neurologist, Manipal Hospitals, Varthur Road. We are making this video just to bring out some information about stroke to promote more awareness. Stroke literally means sudden out of the blue. So from the neurological perspective, sudden onset deficit is termed as stroke. It can be in terms of speech characterized by inability to speech or slurring of speech. It can be in terms of language function wherein they are not able to say out the appropriate words. It can be weakness involving any one side of the body. It can be walking difficulty or loss of balance. The key word here is sudden onset. The most important thing is to reach out to the nearest stroke-ready hospital. When I say stroke-ready, there should be a neuroimaging available, be it CT scan or MRI. There should be associated neurologists and a neurosurgeon who will be able to take care of such emergencies. So just to give you an idea as to what stroke is, stroke is characterized by compromised blood supply to the brain, which is all of a sudden. It can be age-related process or it can happen secondary to a heart-related problem. Apart from that, there are numerous other rare causes for stroke. First of all, we have to prove that it is stroke. So when you reach the hospital, they'll do certain blood workup. Most importantly, the imaging of the brain is done. We do either a CT scan or MRI based on the availability. Once we prove that it is because of a clot, then there are a couple of interventions which we would like to do. You would have heard this term called as clot busters. There are a couple of clot busters available in the market. So we choose any one of those based on the condition of the patient and treat it. And the management depends upon the size of the clot. If there's a huge clot, there's something called as mechanical thrombus to me. This is very similar to angioplasty, which is usually done by the cardiologist, wherein the guide wire is passed and the clot is mechanically removed. After the introduction of these treatment measures, there has been a significant improvement in terms of stroke outcome. There was a time when someone suffered a paralytic attack. He was bound to the bed for life, but now it's not the case. We have seen numerous cases wherein the patient comes to the hospital completely paralysed and the next day onwards he starts walking. This is the miracle of treating stroke on time. So as we all neurologists say, time is brain. Reads the hospital on time to get the maximum benefit. When you get any of these symptoms, which I enumerated in the beginning, reach out to the nearest hospital immediately. Don't try to book an appointment in the OPD or don't try to call up your family physician and book an appointment with him. Thank you.