One is too much - prevention must improve

Preventing recurrent strokes needs improvement

The study, published in Neurology, was based on 10,399 people in South Carolina who had a hospital discharge diagnosis of stroke in 2002. The results showed that nearly 25% of people who had a stroke died within one year from any cause and 8% had another stroke within a year.

These risks rose steadily one year after the initial stroke. By the end of four years after a stroke, the risk of another stroke was 18% and the risk of death was 41%.

“Furthermore, the risk of recurrent stroke was between three and six times higher than the risk of heart attack at different points during the study,” researcher Wuwei (Wayne) Feng, MD, MS, with the department of neuroscience at the Medical University of South Carolina, says in a news release. “Our findings suggest that South Carolina and possibly other parts of the United States may have a long way to go in preventing and reducing the risk factors for recurrent strokes.”