The material presented in the monograph has been prepared so that it can be used not only by students of medicine and other related disciplines, but also by specialists in vascular surgery, angiologists and interventional radiologists and neuroscientists (neurologists, neuropsychologists, clinical psychologists and neurologists, primary care physicians and physiotherapists) involved in the long-term care of patients with critical carotid artery stenosis. Two important elements of the design of this publication should be mentioned, which further enhance its scientific and didactic value. The first is a detailed description of the open and endovascular surgical techniques offered to patients with critical carotid artery stenosis, allowing us to complement the theoretical discourse with insights into the real-life situations of people who have been affected by dramatic events that ruin their lives to date and adversely affect their quality of life. As is well known, the mental state of a person is not indifferent to the health of the body and vice versa: pain, discomfort, dysfunction in any part of the body almost always lead to a loss of emotional equilibrium, sometimes to cognitive and behavioural disorders, and therefore to a reduction in the health-related quality of life. Hence the need for the entire therapeutic team to work together, which, according to the principles of evidence-based medicine, also includes the patient and his or her family.
Figures, tables and photographs are another element which makes this book reader-friendly. It is not only a matter of making the book more attractive to readers, but also that the graphic design, especially the drawings explaining the phenomena and processes discussed in the book, allows for a better understanding of the lecture, which is intrinsically complex and not easy to understand by a person who has not dealt with this subject before. And yet, such readers (e.g. students or those interested in the subject, but without specialist training) are likely to find the book useful.