Stroke Health Center

News and Features Related to Stroke

Stroke: Surgery Safer Than Angioplasty?

Aug. 28, 2009 -- Surgery is safer and slightly more effective than balloon angioplasty for preventing strokes, new research shows. Two newly published investigations join a growing body of research showing worse outcomes in patients who have balloon angioplasty to clear the clogged neck arteries tha
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Ankle Test Tells Heart Risk After Stroke

Aug. 27, 2009 -- People with peripheral artery disease (PAD) -- even without symptoms -- have a more than fourfold higher risk of bad outcomes after a transient ischemic attack (TIA) or stroke, a new study suggests. But the same study finds that a simple test of blood pressure at the ankle can detec
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Gender Gap in Stroke Symptoms?

June 16, 2009 -- Women may be more likely than men to have "nontraditional" stroke symptoms, especially disorientation, confusion, or loss of consciousness, according to a new study. The University of Michigan's Lynda Lisabeth, PhD, and colleagues studied 470 people who were treated at the Universit
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Stroke Treatment Window Widens

May 28, 2009 -- After a stroke, you've got very little time to get treatment. But some patients now have a bit more time. A stroke occurs when a clot cuts off blood flow to parts of the brain. Those parts of the brain soon start to die. A drug called tissue plasminogen activator -- tPA -- dissolves
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Surviving Stroke: A Personal Story

It all started with a headache -- pounding pain behind the left eye -- that wouldn't go away. A healthy 37-year-old at the time, Jill Bolte Taylor tried to shake the pain with a cardio workout. But that didn't work. Feeling rocky, Taylor headed for her shower. She noticed herself losing coordination
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Statins May Lower Stroke Risk

April 15, 2009 -- Taking statins, which are drugs that lower cholesterol, may make stroke 18% less likely for high-risk patients. That news, published in May's edition of The Lancet, comes from a review of 24 studies that included nearly 165,800 adults at high risk of stroke. The patients, who were
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Music May Help Stroke Patients

March 25, 2009 -- Listening to music you like is a mood booster, and it may also help stroke patients with visual awareness problems do better on neurological tests. That news appears in the early online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. British researchers -- including Dav
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B Vitamins May Cut Stroke Risk

Feb. 20, 2009 (San Diego) -- High doses of B vitamins may help prevent stroke in high-risk people, new research suggests. The finding comes from the Heart Outcomes Prevention Evaluation 2 trial of more than 5,500 men and women with heart disease. Participants were assigned to a daily regimen of eith
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Early Menopause May Double Stroke Risk

Feb. 20, 2009 (San Diego) -- Women who permanently stop menstruating before age 42 are twice as likely as other women to suffer a stroke, a large study shows. “On the opposite end, women who enter natural menopause after age 54 are about 70% less likely to have a stroke compared with women who enter
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Robots Give Stroke Patients a Helping Hand

Feb. 20, 2009 (San Diego) -- Stroke patients who were lent a robotic hand regained some lost strength and motor skills, researchers report. Steven C. Cramer, MD, director of the Stroke Center at the University of California, Irvine, and colleagues studied 15 stroke patients with partial paralysis an
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