The April issue of Stroke reported a 24 percent drop in strokes among elderly people who were treating irregular heartbeat with the blood thinner warfarin. The patients all had atrial fibrillation, yet only half were taking warfarin, the usual treatment for the condition. Stroke of genius Tomorrow, lots of treatments may be available for preventing and healing strokes. Today, stroke treatment is lagging. Thus many elderly people, who get most strokes, do not know the symptoms, or the need to go immediately to the hospital.
Ignorant patients are one thing.
But, Felberg, Clark and others in the brain-saving business, say many doctors and hospitals have not started treating strokes as emergencies. If you come into the emergency room with a stroke, you're not in pain, you're not complaining. If you come in with a knife wound to the abdomen, you're bleeding, screaming, and you get help right away. Yet the mortality of a knife wound to the abdomen is 5 percent, and the mortality of stroke is 20 percent. Strike it rich with our stroke bibliography .