2024-05-13 13:51:30
“Weakness, blurred or tunnel vision, dark eyes, dizziness, nausea, pale skin, sweating, or similar symptoms usually signal a pre-fainting condition called presyncope.
In such cases, efforts should be made to quickly restore and maintain sufficient cerebral blood flow: lie down, raise your legs above the level of your heart, loosen tight collars or clothes,” emphasizes the neurologist doctor.
When the body is in a supine position, when the head is at the same level as the heart, blood flows more easily to the brain and cerebral blood flow is restored, so consciousness is quickly regained. If it is not possible to lie down, you should sit down and bend your head down between your knees, drink water if a lack of fluids is suspected, or eat fast carbohydrates.
What are the most common causes of unconsciousness?
The mentioned symptoms, which warn about fainting, usually occur due to insufficient blood flow to the brain. Then the brain cells are no longer provided with a sufficient supply of nutrients and their activity is disturbed, and the person loses consciousness.
Loss of consciousness can occur for various reasons:
– neurogenic or reflex, for example, vasovagal – due to long standing, high stress, fear, pain or situational – coughing, tightening (tension of the abdominal muscles), as well as due to irritation of the carotid sinus;
– would cause orthostatic hypotension, when blood or fluids are lost after sweating, vomiting, diarrhoea, due to vasodilator, fluid expelling drugs or other preparations. Also in case of certain neurological or other diseases, due to which the activity of the vegetative nervous system and the regulation of vascular tone are disrupted;
– cardiogenic – heart rhythm disorders or structural heart diseases.
Should you be alarmed if you lose consciousness?
Syncopes that develop due to vasovagal or situational causes are usually benign and do not require any special treatment, so it is usually enough to avoid provoking situations or factors. However, far more dangerous are cardiogenic syncopes, which account for about 10 percent. of all fainting (this percentage is much lower among young people and higher among older people). This type of fainting signals heart disease and increases the risk of death.
“If the cardiogenic origin of syncope is suspected, it is important not to delay – in this case, the earliest possible consultation with your doctor would help. Of course, a consultation with a specialist is also valuable after the first syncope in life, if there are no obvious circumstances or easily identifiable reasons why it happened, or if this condition is repeated”, notes R. Stonkutė-Gailienė.
When evaluating a patient with near or complete syncope, detailed information about possible provoking circumstances is very important: what the patient was doing before and during the event, what was his body position, whether the onset was sudden or gradual.
Also, what symptoms did the person feel before losing consciousness, how long did the event last, what was the color of the skin, were there movements, convulsions, biting the tongue, urination, was there a disorientation after that, and so on.
“In order to find out whether the loss of consciousness that has occurred is of greater risk, it is absolutely necessary to interview the witnesses of the event. “More serious, more dangerous diseases are signaled by the onset related to physical exertion, chest, back, headache, shortness of breath, a feeling of fast or irregular heartbeat, neurological symptoms, double vision, speech disorder and the like”, says the neurologist doctor.
Loss of consciousness can also be caused by other diseases not related to blood circulation
Syncope is only one of the possible causes of temporary loss of consciousness – others may include psychogenic episodes, brain trauma, intoxication, metabolic disorders or epileptic seizures.
“Epilepsy is a chronic disease of the central nervous system characterized by recurrent seizures. Not all seizures are easy to recognize, because they are very different – sometimes a person is disorientated for a short time or has a strange feeling, easy disconnection, which is completely invisible to others”, points out R. Stonkutė-Gailienė.
Epilepsy is usually best recognized by convulsions, when a person loses consciousness, falls, and jerks throughout the body. It is worth noting that body jerks (myoclonus) can also be observed during syncope. In addition, epileptic seizures can occur, when a person loses consciousness and falls down when tensed, but no convulsions occur.
“It is useful to know that urinating and open eyes are considered typical symptoms of an epileptic attack and can occasionally occur with syncope. Therefore, it is not always easy to establish a true diagnosis, it is often necessary to carry out additional tests: electrocardiogram, detailed blood tests, electroencephalography and imaging tests of the brain – computer tomography or magnetic resonance tomography. It is often necessary to consult a cardiologist in order to rule out cardiogenic causes of loss of consciousness or disturbance,” says the neurologist doctor.
It is also worth noting that when diagnosing epilepsy, a detailed patient history, assessment of the circumstances, and the testimony of witnesses to the episode are very important – if the seizures are repeated, the video footage of the patient’s relatives can be useful.
How to help a fainting person?
If a person faints, they should be placed on their back, their legs should be raised at least 30 cm above the level of their heart, and any tight clothes or collar should be loosened. Then you should call him, energetically pat him or move him – to check his state of consciousness.
“After fainting, consciousness usually returns quickly, only in rare cases it may take more than a dozen seconds. It is absolutely necessary to check breathing and pulse, if there are none – call for help and perform initial resuscitation. If a person is vomiting or bleeding from the mouth, if he does not regain consciousness quite quickly, but resuscitation is not needed, then he should be turned on his side”, emphasizes doctor neurologist R. Stonkutė-Gailienė.
If a person’s lips or face turn blue, an irregular or weak pulse is observed, breathing is difficult, the person does not regain consciousness quickly, or orientation remains disturbed after regaining consciousness, or if they complained of chest pain before losing consciousness, it is necessary to urgently call an ambulance.
2024-05-13 13:51:30