WASHINGTON (AP) — When a stroke hits at 52, like what happened
to Sen. Mark
Kirk of Illinois, the reaction is an astonished, "But
he's so young."
The reality is that strokes don't just happen to grandma. They
can happen at any age, even to children — and they're on the
rise among the young and middle-aged.
That makes it crucial to know the warning signs no matter how
old you are.
"Nobody's invincible," warns Dr. Ralph Sacco, a University of
Miami neurologist and past president of the American Heart
Association.
Every year, about 795,000 people in the U.S. have a stroke.
While some strokes are caused by bleeding in the brain, most
are like a clogged pipe. Called ischemic strokes, a clot blocks
blood
flow, starving brain cells to death unless that
circulation is restored fast.
Make no mistake, the vast majority of strokes do occur in older
adults. But up to a quarter of them strike people younger than
65, Sacco says.
In the so-called stroke belt in the Southeast, that
figure can be markedly worse. At Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in
North Carolina, a stunning 45 percent of stroke patients are
young or middle-aged, says stroke center director Dr. Cheryl
Bushnell.
More ominous, recent government research found that nationwide,
hospitalization rates for ischemic strokes have jumped by about
a third among people ages 15 to 44 over the past decade.
Sometimes younger-age strokes are flukes with no warning signs,
impossible to predict — like Kirk's appears to be. The
Republican senator is a Navy Reserve commander and avid
swimmer, but dizziness sent him to the hospital. It turns out
he had a tear in the carotid artery in his neck which blocked
blood flow to his brain, triggering a stroke. Trauma usually
causes such tears, although doctors haven't been able to say
what caused Kirk's. His doctor at a Chicago hospital said
Monday that Kirk was continuing to improve from the stroke,
which affected his left side.
Heart birth defects, such as a little hole in the heart known
as a PFO, and blood-clotting disorders also tend to cause
strokes more often in younger people than in seniors.
But just like strokes at older ages, a lot of younger strokes
are preventable. The increase seems to be part of a troubling
trend: As Americans get fatter, high blood pressure, diabetes and other
artery-corroding consequences set in at an earlier age —
meaning resulting strokes can hit earlier, too.
Indeed, research reported in Annals of Neurology last fall
found nearly 1 in 3 of the 15- to 34-year-olds hospitalized for
a stroke, and over half of those ages 35 to 44, already had
high blood pressure.
More women are having strokes during or right after pregnancy,
too, the government reported last summer. That's because more
of them start out with unhealthy conditions like high blood
pressure even before the hormonal changes kick in.
Whatever the cause or the age, anyone with stroke symptoms needs
emergency care: Sudden numbness or weakness in the face, arm or
leg, especially on one side; sudden difficulty speaking or
understanding speech; trouble seeing or walking; a sudden
super-severe headache.
Younger adults are less likely than seniors to know those
symptoms, and tend to try to shrug them off, Bushnell says. She
points to a recent 50-something patient who twice ignored
temporary episodes of weakness on one side. Called TIAs, for
transient ischemic attacks, such episodes are a big red flag
that a full-fledged stroke may be imminent. A third TIA finally
brought him to the emergency room. By then, aggressive
treatment wasn't enough to avoid a stroke that left him with
impaired speech.
"As people get older, they have more and more direct contact
with people who had strokes," and learn what to watch for,
Bushnell says. But at younger ages, "there's just a gap in
awareness."
Who is at increased risk for a younger-than-usual stroke?
African-Americans and Hispanics, more than whites. Someone
whose parent had a stroke before age 65 is at extra risk.
But mostly, the same things that are bad for your heart are bad
for your brain, making it crucial to control blood pressure,
diabetes and cholesterol, to stop smoking and to keep active.
At http://www.powertoendstroke.org the American Heart Association
offers a seven-step online test called "My Life Check" that can
help assess your risks.
Younger people do tend to survive strokes more than older
people, and to recover better.
But Arnold Springs, 48, of Winston-Salem, N.C., knows it was
his friends' fast 911 call that made the difference for him
earlier this month.
"All of a sudden, my right arm went numb. The next thing I knew
I was on the floor," Springs recalls.
The ambulance got him to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in
time for a clot-busting drug to stop his stroke. Springs left
the hospital three days later with some loss of vision and
trouble walking, problems that his sister says are expected to
improve — plus orders to lower his blood pressure to stave off
future strokes.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical
issues for The Associated Press in Washington.
Originally posted here:
Senator's stroke shows they can hit the young, too