Despite significant decrease in mortality in stroke since 1950, the annual incidence of strokes in the
general population remains at 1 or 2 per 1000 each year. There is an estimated of 50 000 new cases of
stroke in Canada annually. There are approximately six to eight survivors of stroke per 1000 each year.
Patients live an average of 7 years after stroke.
There appears to be low levels of knowledge of both risk factors and stroke warning signs among both
high- and low-risk populations. Usually, knowledge about stroke risk factors is por, and as in myocardial
infarction, delays from symptom onset to decision to seek medical attention are the most significant
causes of delay in patients with stroke.
The most frequent symptoms are compatible with diagnoses of stroke, transient ischemic attack,
intracerebral hemorrhage, or subarachnoid hemorrhage. It is common for the patients don't be unable
to respond to questioning due to speech difficulties or an impaired mental status. Non-stroke diagnoses
included dizziness/ataxia, seizure, dysarthria not otherwise specified (NOS), numbness NOS, syncope,
migraine headache, anxiety, subdural hematoma, visual disturbances NOS, hepatic encephalopathy,
alcoholic amnesic syndrome, acute poliomyelitis, soft tissue pain NOS, dementia, and other brain
condition NOS. The non-stroke patients were like those with a final diagnosis of stroke in terms of age,
race, and sex.
Supposedly, interventional thrombolytic stroke therapy (recombinant tissue plasminogen activator) is
optimally effective only when administered within 3 hours of the onset of the vascular event.
The pharmacological modulation of the unsuspected capacity of eukaryotic cells to generate their own
oxygen, dissociating the water molecules contained inside the cells, as in plants, opens new horizons
regarding the prevention and treatment of one of the most epidemiologically important diseases.
