Elderly don't know stroke signs: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Despite increased efforts in recent years to educate the public about stroke symptoms, the people most likely to suffer stroke -- the elderly -- still often do not realize they are having a stroke, a new study shows.

"Half of the patients we studied had even had a stroke previously and they still did not make the connection between the two events," Dr. Latha Stead of the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota said in a statement.

The results of the study were presented today during the annual meeting of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) in Seattle.

Among 344 elderly stroke patients seen in the ER, researchers found that, on average, patients delayed going to the hospital for nearly three hours from the start of symptoms. Some waited over a week. "We need to do a better job of educating people that stroke is a medical emergency and that they need to get to the emergency department ASAP," Stead stated.

Seventy-two percent of the patients studied had had acute ischemic stroke, which is triggered by a clot that blocks a blood vessel in the brain. The remaining 28 percent had had a "mini stroke" - what doctor's call a transient ischemic attack, or TIA.

In a TIA, a clot temporarily clogs an artery, depriving that part of the brain of needed oxygen. With a TIA, symptoms of a stroke last for a short period -- less than 5 minutes -- and cause no lasting damage; as a result, people often ignore TIAs. These mini strokes, however, are often a warning sign of more serious stroke to come, so rapid diagnosis and treatment is important.

Stead and colleagues found that only about half of the patients in the study thought they were having a stroke or TIA.

Classic stroke symptoms include weakness in one part of the body, particularly an arm or leg; difficulty speaking, facial droop, severe headache, mental confusion and dizziness.

The most frequent stroke symptoms experienced by patients in this study were weakness (65 percent), inability to speak or slurred speech (59 percent), numbness or tingling in arm, face or leg (37 percent) and facial droop (31 percent).

Some of the reasons why patients who thought they were having a stroke still did not come to the ER right away are "really heartbreaking," Stead said. For example, some patients were afraid to come to the ER by themselves because they feared dying at the hospital alone; "others didn't want to inconvenience a friend or family member by asking to go to the hospital," Stead noted.

"In fact, you are less likely to die if you get to the ER as soon as possible," Stead said. "And the inconvenience you might cause a family member is nothing compared to the inconvenience of lasting stroke damage."

In the current study, the "vast majority" of the 344 stroke patients had been independent in their daily activities, Stead added. "With early medical intervention and good care, they have a much better chance of keeping it that way even after stroke!"