Q: My mother was diagnosed for blood clot in her brain and has been given medicines for it. She fell down recently and got hurt. Kindly let me know the cause of the blood clot and how serious it is?

A:Blood clot in brain may be any of 2 things. a. There is a blood clot in the vessels going to the brain and brain suffers from lack of blood and gets an infarction. This is due to hardening of vessels due to age and is increased with diabetes, high BP, smoking etc. b. There is bleeding in the skull either in the brain or around it and this has clotted. This is usually due to high BP or injury or disease of blood vessels so that they have ruptured. Both forms tend to recover. About 30% die in the acute phase and 20% have a disability due to it. The result will be known by the end of the first month. Of course after attack the causes such as high BP, diabetes, smoking etc. must be carefully controlled.