Guidelines for the Prevention of Stroke in Women

American Heart Association/American Stroke Association Scientific Statement

For the first time, guidelines have been developed for preventing stroke in women[1].

"If you are a woman, you share many of the same risk factors for stroke with men, but your risk is also influenced by hormones, reproductive health, pregnancy, childbirth and other sex-related factors," said Cheryl Bushnell, MD, MHS, author of the new scientific statement published in the American Heart Association journal Stroke.

The guidelines outline stroke risks unique to women and provide scientifically-based recommendations on how best to treat them, including:

Preeclampsia and eclampsia are blood pressure disorders during pregnancy that cause major complications, including stroke during or after delivery, premature birth, and risk for stroke well after child-bearing. Preeclampsia is characterized by high blood pressure and high protein levels in the urine, and when seizure also occurs, this is called eclampsia.

High blood pressure, migraine with aura, atrial fibrillation, diabetes, depression and emotional stress are stroke risk factors that tend to be stronger or more common in women than in men. More studies need to be done to develop a female-specific score to identify women at risk for stroke, said Bushnell, associate professor of neurology and director of the Stroke Center at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Reference 

Bushnell C, McCullough LD, Awad IA, Chireau MV, Fedder WN, Furie KL, Howard VJ, Lichtman JH, Lisabeth LD, Piña IL, Reeves MJ, Rexrode KM, Saposnik G, Singh V, Towfighi A, Vaccarino V, Walters MR; on behalf of the American Heart Association Stroke Council, Council on Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing, Council on Clinical Cardiology, Council on Epidemiology and Prevention, and Council for High Blood Pressure Research. Guidelines for the Prevention of Stroke in Women: A Statement for Healthcare Professionals From the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.
Stroke. 2014 Feb 6. [Epub ahead of print] doi: 10.1161/​01.str.0000442009.06663.48

http://stroke.ahajournals.org/content/early/2014/02/06/01.str.0000442009.06663.48.abstract 

 

Content updated FEbruary 2014

 

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