I visited my friend’s place recently after he had called me over to talk to his father, who had recently suffered a large vessel stroke. During my interaction, I noticed my friend’s father frequently breaking down. He was of the view that he had become a burden on his son.
The current World Health Organisation definition of stroke is to rapidly develop clinical signs of focal (or global) disturbance of cerebral function, lasting more than 24 hours or leading to death, with no apparent cause other than that of vascular origin.
The word ‘stroke’ was first introduced to medicine by William Cole in a 1689 essay entitled ‘A Physico-Medical Essay Concerning the Late Frequencies of Apoplexies’. Before Cole, the common term used to describe very acute non-traumatic brain injuries was ‘apoplexy’. It originated with Hippocrates circa 400 BC.
