FACTORS INFLUENCING THE DEVELOPMENT OF CEREBRAL VASCULAR ACCIDENTS

Abstract

Although cerebral vascular accidents comprise the most frequently encountered disorders of the nervous system, there is still considerable uncertainty regarding the basic pathophysiologic mechanisms responsible for their causation. No theory yet advanced, attempting to explain the stroke as a manifestation of purely local disturbances in structure and function of the intracerebral blood vessels, has been entirely satisfactory.¹In a previous investigation²of 149 patients under 60 years of age who died with acute cerebral apoplexy, study of the cerebral lesion alone gave little information as to the etiologic factors or the mechanisms of production, but a survey of the postmortem findings as a whole revealed a close correlation between the cerebral lesion and the cardiocirculatory status. In 118 cases organic cardiovascular disease was present, and the apoplectic attack was associated with decompensation in 94 cases. In the remaining 31 cases the cerebral vascular accident could be related to