May is Stroke Awareness Month!
We have all heard medical professionals talk about stroke, but do you really know the facts? An estimated 795,000 Americans will have a stroke each year, with a stroke occurring every 40 seconds. Stroke is the 5 th leading cause of death in the US and the number 1 cause of disability. Of the 7 million stroke survivors in the USA, approximately two thirds of them are disabled. During a stroke, brain cells die at a rate of 32,000 per second. Seeking quick treatment is the key to survival and reducing disability. Stroke is a process that affects the blood vessels leading to and within the brain. You could essentially call a stroke a “brain attack”. The most common type of stroke is from a blockage in a blood vessel. This type of stroke is called ischemic. The blockage could be from a clot that forms in the brain or a clot that formed somewhere else in the body and traveled to the brain. A transient ischemic attack (TIA), also called a mini stroke, is from a blockage that