In fact, patients would almost rather die than be left with a severe motor or cognitive deficit. In addition to not being able to do what they once did, these patients require help from outside the home. Another area that we have only begun to explore is the burden on the caregiver. If you survey the caregivers and patients, most caregivers respond that they have insufficient resources, meaning financial as well as personal resources. And, not surprisingly, half of the caregivers develop an emotional illness at 1 year after their family member's stroke, primarily depression, but also anxiety and other problems.
Caregivers are most often female, either a spouse or a daughter of the victim.
And most of these people are forced to give up something, either a job outside the home or time with their own family. This burden and the cost of this burden are enormous and are not yet quantified. Stroke can result from several different diseases. A hemorrhagic stroke can be a hematoma, a disease that occurs in the same age group and is associated with the same risk factors as infarction. And most of the survivors are left gravely disabled.