Stroke risk factors may hit memory, speech too

Stroke risk factors may hit memory, speech too

High blood pressure and other known risk factors for stroke may also affect memory and speech, says a study by US researchers.

Conducted on 30,000 people since 2003, the study which is published in the latest issue of Neurology has found that even those who have never had a stroke can have neurological problems.

The study holds importance in the Indian context where the prevalence of high blood pressure is 24-30 per cent in urban areas and 12-14 per cent in rural areas. But what is more concerning is that not many are aware of their BP status.

“Our results emphasise the importance of early intervention to treat high blood pressure and preserve cognitive health prior to a stroke or other cerebral event,” the first author Frederick Unverzagt, PhD, and a professor of psychiatry at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis.

The new findings come from the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS), an effort to track stroke risk and cognitive health after studying over 30,000 people since 2003 in various hospitals in the country.

Led by George Howard, Chair of the biostatistics department at the University of Albama at Birmingham, the study is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Strokes occur when blood vessels that supply the brain rupture or become blocked causing a host of neurological ailments. But even without suffering a stroke, individuals at risk for stroke may experience cognitive problems as their blood vessels deteriorate.

For this analysis, the REGARDS team collected data on nearly 24,000 participants who had no history of cognitive impairment or stroke, and no evidence of stroke during the study.

“A strength of this study is that it looked at people who were cognitively healthy at the start and reassessed their cognitive function periodically to see who developed problems over time,” said NINDS Deputy Director Walter Koroshetz, MD in the publication.

Over the course of the study, 1,907 people without an evident stroke showed cognitive impairment. “The people who experienced cognitive decline may have had silent strokes or other subclinical changes affecting the brain’s blood supply,” Dr Unverzagt added.