Stroke Appears Biased Towards The Female Gender

Women could be more at risk of developing non-conventional symptoms of stroke in comparison to men; particularly those involving feeling disoriented, dazed, or feeling unconscious. This was a startling revelation by the researchers from the University Of Michigan who as part of their study examined 470 individuals that underwent treatment for ischemic or clot-associated stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) in the University of Michigan Hospital. However, those individuals that were having haemorrhagic or bleeding strokes were not part of the study.

Majority of the stroke cases are ischemic wherein the formation of a blood clot leads to interruption of blood circulation to a section of the brain. An analogous occurrence is found in TIA where the signs of TIA replicate that of a stroke but are milder and are brief in nature. Hence, are mostly known as mini strokes.

The identified signs of a stroke or TIA comprise of:

• Abrupt sense of feeling weak or loss of sensation in the facial area, arm or leg in solely one part of the body.
• Rapid loss in eyesight, strength, disorientation, lost sensation, problems when attempting to speak or inability to comprehend dialogue. Such signs could eventually turn out to be more apparent.
• Unexpected dimness of eyesight particularly in just one eye.
• Suddenly feeling unbalanced, probably alongside feeling nauseous, puking, fever, hiccupping, and difficulty in ingestion.
• Abrupt and extreme headache with no apparent reason, after which the person suddenly loses consciousness – all of which are signals of a stroke because of bleeding.
• Becoming unconsciousness for short bursts of time.
• Inexplicable giddiness or suddenly falling.

Stroke is deemed a medical urgent situation hence it is important to quickly seek medical assistance. This has to be done promptly as clot dissolving stroke medicines need to be administered as swiftly as possible.

Analysing Stroke Signs

The novel study outlines the non-conventional stroke signs that comprise of:

• Pain experienced in the facial area or just one sided or one part of the body.
• Change in mental condition like feeling disoriented, confused or unconscious.
• Feeling light headed.
• Headaches.
• Wide-ranging neurological signs like feeling weak, nauseous and hiccupping.
• Signs those are non-neurologic in nature such as pain in the chest, palpitations and succinctness in breathing.

Conventional stroke signs comprise of:

• Lost sensation or paralysed in just one part of the body.
• Difficulty in speech or comprehending speech.
• Dual vision or other ocular problems.
• Feeling weak in the facial area.
• Feeling uncoordinated.
• Unsteadiness.

The researchers during the course of their study found that majority of the persons that experience stroke or TIA underwent conventional stroke signs or a blend of both conventional and non-conventional signs of stroke. Merely four percent of the females and three percent of the males solely felt non-conventional stroke signs.

Non-conventional stroke signs were cited in 116 females (approximately fifty-two percent) in comparison to 104 males. After taking into consideration numerous other factors, the researchers found that females were 42% more prone to citing no less than one of the non-conventional TIA or stroke signs as compared to the males.

About twenty-three percent of women were found to exhibit a variation in mental status – a prevalent non-conventional stroke sign that was found in just about fifteen percent of males.

A caveat sounded by the researchers is that their findings might have been because of chance. However as other research have also revealed analogous findings, they intend to carry out wider-scaled studies for delving into whether TIA or ischemic stroke signs are gender biased.

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