
How to Reduce Your Risk for Stroke
Being prepared and knowing what to do if someone has a stroke can be lifesaving, especially around family members who may be at higher risk of stroke.
Sep 18, 2018
Mar 16, 2021
ObesityPracticing Nurse Practitioner
Author
San Francisco, CA
Barbara Dehn RN, MS, NP is a practicing Nurse Practitioner and a television health expert, who's known as Nurse Barb. She is passionate about health education, whether it's 1 on 1 with a patient, in a lecture hall at Stanford or with millions of people watching on television. Her warm and engaging personality puts everyone at ease as they learn more about health.
Nurse Barb is the award winning author of the Personal Guides to Health used by over 5 million women in the US, with titles ranging from fertility and pregnancy to menopause and breastfeeding. Active in Social Media, she contributes content to HealthyWomen, Huffington Post, NurseBarb, KevinMD and The Patch and amplifies her reach with an active and engaged Facebook following and 34,000 Twitter followers.
She is the author of The Hot Guide to a Cool Sexy Menopause, Nurse Barb's Guide to Breastfeeding and Nurse Barb's Guide to Pregnancy.
Barb earned a masters degree from UCSF and a BS from Boston College. She is certified by the North American Menopause Society and is a Fellow in the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. Over the last 2 years, she has been an active participant in Global Health Initiatives at FAME Hospital in Karatu, Tanzania. Barb lives in the San Francisco Bay area.
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When my mom's face started to droop to the left and she couldn't form words, I knew she was having a stroke. It turned out that by acting fast, we were able to minimize the damage and she made a good recovery. Other families are not as lucky.
As we go about our busy lives, sometimes the unexpected happens. Being prepared and knowing what to do, especially around family members who may be at higher risk of stroke, can be lifesaving.
A quick review here can help you understand what the types of stroke are, how they occur, how to recognize them to get help immediately and how to help prevent them.
What is a stroke?
Very simply, a stroke occurs when a portion of the brain is deprived of oxygen, causing brain cells to die.
There are three types of stroke:
1. Ischemic stroke from a clot. This is the most common type and is responsible for 87 percent of strokes.
2. Hemorrhagic stroke from bleeding. This usually occurs when a blood vessel is weakened blood vessel and you have very high blood pressure.
3. Transient ischemic attacks (TIAs). These occur when small blood clots temporarily disrupt the flow of oxygen to the brain cells.
What's the best way to prevent strokes?
Follow your grandmother's advice! For most us that means:
All of grandma's advice is aimed toward these goals: being healthy; keeping our weight down; avoiding high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes; and not smoking. These are all some of the controllable risk factors for stroke. Boy, our grandmothers were pretty smart.
Controllable risk factors for stroke include:
There are a couple of others that are important to know.
Risk factors for stroke that are not in your control:
How to Recognize a Stroke
Remember to Act FAST.
Signs of a stroke
Here's the wallet-sized Act FAST for STROKE download you can access for free.
Can you prevent a stroke?
You can start by working on the risk factors that are controllable. You know what that means—following Grandma's advice.
Here's some other lesser known advice:
This blog originally appeared on Nurse Barb's Daily Dose. Barb Dehn is a women's health nurse practitioner, award-winning author and nationally recognized health expert. She practices with Women Physicians in the Silicon Valley of California.