Calculate your risk of a second stroke
Down to Georgia
I’m not what you’d call a big country/western fan, but I was concerned when I heard Charlie Daniels had suffered a stroke last month. I mean, who on earth plays a fiddle with the grit and passion of Charlie Daniels? Nobody.
Charlie is living proof that old doesn’t have to be elderly. He’s 73, still records, still tours internationally, and still rides his snowmobile (he was snowmobiling in Colorado when he had his stroke). And he’s still got big plans to go fishing in Alaska, revisit Israel, and maybe even try skydiving.
Commenting on his stroke, he told the Canadian Press (CP) he never thought, “This is it.” And added, “I just look for everything to turn out good.”
Fortunately, the effects of his stroke were fairly mild, so with his positive attitude, an active life, and lots of plans, Charlie will probably pull through just fine.
But Charlie also told the CP that he’s not worried about another stroke: “It’s not imminent by any stretch of the imagination.”
On this point Charlie may be right. But maybe not. He and his friends and family need to be on high alert for signs of a follow-up stroke, which, by any stretch of the imagination, is a real possibility.
No fiddling around
Of all stroke risk factors, none rank higher than having already had a stroke.
Recently, Harvard Medical School researchers followed more than 800 ischemic stroke patients for 90 days. Each patient was given a brain scan and answered detailed questions about their health status.
Within three months, 60 patients suffered a second stroke. Risk of a second stroke was about 2.5 percent in the first two weeks, and about six percent over the full three months.
Using the collected data, the Harvard team developed a tool they call Recurrence Risk Estimator at 90 Days. An RRE-90 score is assessed by answering a few questions about the patient, including details about his first stroke.
A beta version of the RRE-90 is available online at “nmr.mgh.Harvard.edu/RRE/”. But stroke patients and their doctors are cautioned that further research is necessary to test the accuracy of the estimator.
Meanwhile, the primary message here is that no stroke patient should feel complacent about risk of a second stroke. A positive outlook like Charlie’s is always healthy, but it’s just good sense to keep a cautious watchfulness when red flags are flying.
Along those lines, here’s what Charlie himself wrote in a blog on his website (charliedaniels.com): “First of all, if you begin to feel a stiffness in your limbs or face or if one or more of your limbs start to become difficult to control immediately chew up a couple of aspirin and head for the nearest hospital or clinic.
“Don’t procrastinate or try to tell yourself it’s going to go away. You only have three hours from the time you feel a stroke coming on to get a shot of tPA into your system to break up the blood clots that are causing the stoke. So don’t play with your life, get help.”
Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) is a drug that quickly clears blood clots. Sometimes you’ve just got to go with the drug.
To Your Good Health,
Jenny Thompson
Source:
“A Score to Predict Early Risk of Recurrence After Ischemic Stroke” Neurology, Published online ahead of print 12/16/09, neurology.org
