Pediatric stroke


Pediatric stroke is a stroke that happens in children or adolescents. Stroke affects about 6 in 100,000 children. Stroke is a leading cause of death in children in the U.S.
causes can and does happen at any age. Stroke is different in children and newborns than it is in adults. Children have hemorrhagic strokes as often as they have ischemic strokes, while adults are more likely to have ischemic strokes. Sixty percent of pediatric strokes occur in boys. Causes of stroke are also different in children than they are in adults.

Types of Strokes

Ischemic

In an ischemic stroke, blood supply to part of the brain is decreased, leading to dysfunction of the brain tissue in that area. There are four reasons why this might happen:
  1. Thrombosis
  2. Embolism,
  3. Systemic hypoperfusion
  4. Venous thrombosis.
Stroke without an obvious explanation is termed "cryptogenic" ; this constitutes 30-40% of all ischemic strokes.

Hemorrhagic

Intracranial hemorrhage is the accumulation of blood anywhere within the skull vault. A distinction is made between intra-axial hemorrhage and extra-axial hemorrhage. Intra-axial hemorrhage is due to intraparenchymal hemorrhage or intraventricular hemorrhage. The main types of extra-axial hemorrhage are epidural hematoma, subdural hematoma and subarachnoid hemorrhage. Most of the hemorrhagic stroke syndromes have specific symptoms.

Symptoms and signs

Symptoms often include:
The prognosis for pediatric stroke survivors varies. The following are some common outcomes: