Not only can you survive this grim condition—you can prevent it. Two million Americans are incapacitated and crippled from paralyzing strokes. After AIDS and cancer, stroke is probably the most dreaded and disabling disease to afflict Westernized civilizations. It is also the third most common cause of death in North America.
More Striking Stroke Stats
Some 600,000 Americans suffer strokes each year, and 130,000 die from them. As with heart attacks, serious and even fatal strokes can occur without warning. Around one fourth of victims under age 70 die from the first attack; after that the figure doubles.
Of those who survive, 40 percent need some degree of ongoing special care, but only 10 percent require institutionalization. The remaining 60 percent represent the good news. Some recover completely; nearly all improve enough to care for themselves; most are able to resume their normal activities.
Causes and Types of Strokes
A stroke, or cerebral vascular accident (CVA), is most commonly related to atherosclerosis—a thickening, narrowing, and hardening of arteries supplying the brain with oxygenated blood. These atherosclerotic processes can occur both in arteries within the brain (cerebral arteries) and in arteries leading to the brain (carotid arteries).
The roughened, ragged inner surfaces of damaged arteries become seedbeds for clot formation and plaque buildup. When obstruction is complete, the artery is said to be thrombosed.
Sometimes pieces of plaque or blood clots break off from other parts of the circulatory system and travel to smaller brain arteries causing obstruction. These “traveling pieces” are called emboli. Some 80 percent of CVAs result from either thrombotic or embolic arterial blockages. Hemorrhages, or blowouts, cause the rest of the strokes. Most of these are associated with uncontrolled high blood pressure that forces blood through cracks in stiffened artery walls. A few blowouts are caused by aneurysms, which are ballooned-out areas in arteries that eventually rupture. Either way, the result is bleeding into the brain.
Strokes do their damage by preventing fresh blood from reaching an area of the brain, which soon dies from lack of oxygen. If a large portion of the brain is affected, the stroke will be severe, and can be fatal. A smaller area of brain damage will cause milder symptoms.
In North America, stroke is the leading cause of adult disability.