Tag: Stroke (Page 3 of 4)

Murder is No Longer a Leading Cause of Death in The U.S.

January 15, 2012 / Staff

A respiratory illness called pneumonitis which is seen mainly in people 75 and older, has supplanted homicide as a leading cause of death in the U.S.

Death rates increased for Alzheimer’s disease, which is the nation’s sixth-leading killer.

Also increased are, Kidney disease (No. 8), chronic liver disease and cirrhosis (No. 12), Parkinson’s disease (No. 14) and pneumonitis.

U.S. life expectancy for a child born in 2010 was about 78 years and 8 months, up about a little more than one month from life expectancy for 2009.
Heart disease and cancer remain the top killers, accounting for nearly half the nation’s more than 2.4 million deaths in 2010. But the death rates from them continued to decline.
Deaths rates for five other leading causes of death also dropped in 2010, including stroke, chronic lower respiratory diseases, accidents, flu/pneumonia and blood infections.

Quality Control, Research

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Aspirin Therapy Under Review

January 9, 2012 / Staff

An aspirin a day used to be the recommendation for stroke and heart attack patients for preventative measures.

However the risk of heavy internal bleeding is worse than the potential benefits, especially to healthy people.

The message seems to be that aspirin therapy causes more harm than it’s worth.

Currently, U.S. guidelines all recommend aspirin for primary prevention as long as the benefits outweigh the harms, an equation that depends on baseline risk. This advice is backed by an editorial accompanying the new report.

Health Care Policy, Quality Control, Research, Wellness

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A Link Between Stroke and Mental Impairment Probable

November 21, 2011 / Staff

Risk factors for stroke are strong predictors of future mental impairment.

Maintaining cognitive health is important for everyone as they age but for those who are already at risk for stroke the need is more urgent.

The volunteers were followed for an average of more than four years. After eliminating from consideration any who had had a stroke, the researchers found 1,907 who were cognitively impaired. After controlling for age, sex, race and education, researchers found that high blood pressure and left ventricular hypertrophy independently predicted cognitive impairment, and the more risk factors a person had, the greater the risk for mental problems.

Quality Control, Research, Uncategorized, Wellness

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Be Aware of Heart Attack and Stroke Symptoms

November 10, 2011 / Staff

Stroke and heart attack symptoms can be similar and both conditions require immediate action.

In a heart attack, the longer the heart stops pumping blood, the faster your internal organs begin to die. During a stroke, the longer your brain is deprived of oxygen-rich blood, the more brain cells are damaged beyond repair. The bottom line is, whether it’s a stroke or a heart attack, the longer it takes to get medical assistance, the greater the chance of permanent damage or death.
Timing is critical for both events, and any initial symptoms need to be reported immediately!
Unfortunately both conditions can strike without warning, meaning strokes and heart attacks happen with virtually no symptoms at all. So it’s important to learn how to recognize even the most unlikely cues.

Quality Control, Research, Wellness

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Signs of Aging May Be Undetected Brain Damage

September 7, 2011 / Staff

What we consider as normal signs of aging could actually be indicators of brain damage.

Signs of brain damage can go undetected by normal scans.

When brains were examined under a microscope for signs of damage which would be invisible to normal brain scans, they found 29% of patients with no previously detected sign of stroke had clotted or narrowed blood vessels.

“Often the mild motor symptoms are considered an expected part of aging. We shouldn’t accept this as normal aging. We should try to fix it and understand it.
“If there is an underlying cause, we can intervene and perhaps lessen the impact.”
Dr Kieran Breen, director of research and development at Parkinson’s UK, said: “We know that as people get older they are more likely to develop mini-strokes, so tiny that they cannot be detected by normal scanning techniques.

Research, Wellness

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