CHENNAI : A campaign to be launched in Chennai and later extended across the State will promote awareness on stroke symptoms to help more victims reach hospital in time.

Barely 10 per cent of patients with acute stroke reached hospital within the golden hours, or the first three hours, of what is referred to as a brain attack, in a multi-centric study conducted by the Indian Stroke Association.

In Mumbai, one of the 10 centres where the All India Cooperative Acute Stroke Study was run, 25 per cent of the patients reached hospital within the golden hours while another 25 per cent reached a tertiary ICU within six hours.

Awareness low

"Unlike in the case of heart attacks, public awareness about stroke still remains low. This, coupled with the absence of pain following a stroke event prevents prompt referrals," said G. Arjundas, stroke neurologist and chairman of the Regional Asian Stroke Congress, which concluded here recently.

What made the difference in Mumbai was concerted campaigning by NGOs, media, stroke neurologists and organisations such as the Rotary. The Madras Neuro Trust, now, seeks to replicate in Chennai and across Tamil Nadu the awareness levels about stroke achieved in Mumbai.

While a heart attack produces chest pain and breathing difficulty, what deceives patients suffering a stroke is the absence of pain. Stroke patients may suffer from passing symptoms such as a spell of dizziness, weakness of limbs, visual disturbance, confusion or memory lapse.

The symptoms last for less than 24 hours or some times a couple of days, tricking patients, their family members and even some physicians, into dismissing the signs as general weakness of the body.

It is only when paralysis gets established that panic sets in, by when critical time would have passed.

Thrombolysis, commonly used to treat acute heart attack conditions, is effective within three hours of onset of stroke. However, after a lapse of six hours or more, there is little chance of salvaging the partially paralysed nerve cells.

The irony is that while there are several new and highly effective drugs to manage stroke, patients seldom reach the ICU in time.

In this context, the stroke is regarded as more dangerous and disabling than a heart attack, especially with improved cardiac treatment outcomes.

The Madras Neuro Trust will pin its campaign on the multiple risk factors leading to stroke such as progressing age, hypertension, diabetes, cardiac disease, previous stroke history, obesity, tobacco consumption and high fat diet.

"Training to be ambidextrous can be useful as learning to use the left hand when the right side has been paralysed after a stroke has occurred can be a complex task," Dr. Arjundas said.

Worldwide about 20 million suffer from stroke every year and roughly five million are left disabled. The incidence of stroke increases with age.

The prevalence rate of stroke in below 45 year age group is 66 per 1,00,000 of population, 998 in the 45 to 64 segment and 5063 per lakh of population in the age group above 65 years.

Stroke has a prevalence of roughly 200 per lakh of population in India where it is regarded a catastrophic illness.

And the number of strokes are set to increase in rapidly ageing society, neurologists say.

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