The profile of Cerebrovascular Accident patients assisted at the Physical Therapy Neurological Clinic of the University of Passo Fundo

Abstract

The Cerebrovascular accident (CVA) results from the blood restriction to the brain, leading to the quick development of clinical signs of local or global cerebral function disturbances and its symptoms remain for a period longer than 24 hour or lead to the death. The aim of this study was to set a profile of the patients diagnosed with CVA, who had been assisted at the Physical Therapy Neurological Clinic of Passo Fundo University, from March-2005 to March-2006. This was a quantitative, descriptive and retrospective documental study with data collecting on 43 medical records, in which the following variables were studied: the patient’s gender, race, age group and origin, illness occurrence, type of CVA, functional diagnosis, risk factors, secondary complications, and the situation of the assistance. The outcomes showed that 31 (72.09%) patients were males, 39 (90.7%) were whites and the predominant age group was 50 to 59 years old. As for the type of CVA, 37 (86.1%) of the cases were ischemic. As risk factors, the systemic arterial hypertension and the cardiac disease were the most frequent with 34 (79%) and 06 (13.9%) subjects, respectively. Most of the patients (n= 24; 55.8%) didn’t present secondary associated complications and depression was the predominant factor found in the others (n= 9; 20.9%). From the results, it is concluded that the patients’ profile in the studied sample consists of male whites, in the age group of 50-59 years with ischemic cerebrovascular lesions.