Ana-Maria Dumitrescu, Carmen Valerica Ripa, Ioan GotcÄ?, Irina-Luciana Gurzu, Gica Avram Lehaci, Roxana Gabriela Cobzaru, AnaMaria Slanina and Anca Sava
Aim and background: Considering its great importance in connecting the internal carotid with the vertebrobasilar system, the circle of Willis, a major anastomotic arterial system located at the base of the brain, may present various anatomical configurations that become possible triggers for certain cerebro-vascular diseases such as strokes or aneurysms. The present study wants to highlight the importance of clinical findings related to anatomical variations in the circle of Willis that could lay at the basis of the development of posterior cerebral artery stroke (PCA stroke), interconnecting them with occupational rehabilitation of such patients. Material and methods: We did a research of data published over the last 1 years, fromseveral international medical libraries and databases such as Pubmed, Google Scholar, Cambridge Core, using the following specific keywords combination: “circle of Willis, anatomical variants, posterior cerebral artery stroke, cognitive and language disorder”, and “posterior cerebral artery stroke, occupational therapy, occupational rehabilitation”. A descriptive review was realized describing several types of occupational rehabilitation techniques involved in the case of patients with PCA stroke, considered as a consequence of variations of the circle of Willis. Results: There are taken into consideration the connections between PCA stroke and specific clinical pathologies represented mainly by cognitive, behavioral, visual and language disorders and the rehabilitation in these cases, which has been little investigated in the specialty literature, with a focus on occupational therapy procedures. Conclusion: A correct knowledge upon the clinical consequences of anatomical variants of the circle of Willis, in this case, related to PCA stroke would be very useful not only to surgeons, pathologists and anatomists, but also to bedside clinicians.
