May is Stroke Awareness Month and is represented by the color red. We offer red personalized awareness ribbon pins, fabric ribbons in bulk, and wristbands. We also offer red non-personalized awareness ribbon pins, and personalized wristbands and personalized ribbons.
This week’s awareness blog is a repeat topic, but the information is all new, and different from the other post. Sometimes, these duplicate topics are a really good way for me to convey more information than I’m able to in a single post.
Stroke Awareness Month
Today’s topic is Stroke. I’ve written about strokes, again, in honor of Stroke Awareness Month, which is observed every May in the United States. I’m going to use this week’s post to relay some important statistics about stroke to you. If you’re interested in reading all the basics, scroll down to our original stroke post.
Stroke Statistics
- Did you know that one out of every 20 deaths in the U.S. is caused by a stroke? That means that annually, more than 130,000 people die from a stroke.
- Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the United States.
- Almost 800,000 people suffer a stroke. Of the nearly 800,00 people who have strokes, over 600,000 of them are first time strokes. With strokes, once you have one, your chances of having another are higher. This makes taking care of yourself and addressing your risk factors extremely important. The second or third strokes become much more dangerous, and carry a higher potential of death.
- The remaining number of people who suffer a stroke are people who have already had at least one other stroke previously. That means around one in four stroke victims have already had a stroke.
- Many people do not die from their first stroke. Every 40 seconds that pass, somebody suffers a stroke. But, every four minutes that passes, someone dies from a stroke. This means that there are a fairly large number of people out there who are living with the consequences of a stroke.
- Stroke is the leading cause of disability (long-term or permanent disability, not short-term disability) in the United States. These patients can no longer work, or will miss a significant amount of work while recovering.
- Over half of stroke victims over the age of 65 lose some portion of their mobility, making them dependent on wheelchairs, walkers, canes, or caretakers.
- The vast majority of the type of stroke that people have is called are called ischemic strokes. Ischemic strokes are when the blood flow to the brain becomes blocked and prevents blood from circulating to the brain, which can cause serious damage to the tissue. The estimate of ischemic strokes that occur out of the total number of strokes is 87%. That is an extremely high number, which means that risk factors that lead to this type of stroke may be common. Knowing your risk factors, and seeing when it’s time to make changes to your life are the most important things in order to prevent a stroke from happening.
- Strokes can occur at any age! Children can and do have strokes, however, your risk for having a stroke generally increases as you get older. In any given year, the percentage of people that suffer a stroke who are over the age of 65 is around 60%.
- High blood pressure, high cholesterol, and smoking are common causes of stroke, and the scary part is that two thirds of the U.S. population has at least one of these conditions or habits.
- Less than 40% of people who have already experienced a stroke knew all the major symptoms to look for.
- People who were treated in the emergency room within 3 hours of their first symptoms have the best outcome, and experience less disability three months after than those who do not get to the emergency room immediately. Keep in mind that strokes can cause significant impairment so experiencing disability three months out is normal. Some people never fully recover. Some will spend years in rehab. When treated early, the outcome for stroke patients often improves greatly, as opposed to those who wait to seek medical attention.
Ethnicity does affect your risk for stroke. Stroke risk for African Americans is twice as high as Caucasians, and they are more likely to die from it. Hispanic people’s risk for stroke lies between the risk of Caucasians and African Americans. The groups with the highest risk for stroke are African American, Native American, and Native Alaskan.
Know the Symptoms of a Stroke
The trick to remembering and spotting the symptoms of a stroke is the acronym FAST.
F – face. Ask the person to smile. Is their face symmetrical or does it droop on one side?
A – arms. Ask the person to raise both arms. Does one arm drift downwards?
S – speech. Ask the person to repeat a simple sentence. Do they slur when they speak, or repeat the sentence in a strange way, perhaps with different words?
T – time. If any of these symptoms, or a combination of them, occurs, call 911 immediately! Getting to the emergency room as fast as possible is critical in minimizing damage. Do not wait to see if symptoms improve.
About Personalized Cause and Stroke Awareness Month
Personalized Cause® runs this awareness blog. Personalized Cause® is an awareness company based in the United States. We specialize in custom awareness ribbons, which are a product unique to our company. Personalized Cause® is the only company in the country to offer our customers the ability to personalize any color awareness ribbon they choose with a name, date, phrase or message. Our custom awareness ribbons are a beautiful way to show support, raise awareness, or be an advocate for your cause. The thing that makes our custom awareness ribbons so popular is that you do not have to buy in bulk. In fact, we have no order minimum for a custom awareness ribbon. We also carry classic awareness ribbons, fabric awareness ribbons, and silicone wristbands. So, give our products a look. Our entire line of products is very affordable.
Raising Awareness Through Our Blog
Personalized Cause® started this awareness blog in order to help raise awareness for all different sorts of causes, using our website as a platform. We are all about awareness, and helping others to raise awareness for the causes that matter to them. We also wanted to take it upon ourselves to raise awareness on behalf of causes that are observed every month in the U.S., or internationally. Hopefully we will educate our readers on the various issues affecting so many. You may not be affected by every topic, but you will probably encounter someone who is. We want to make our reader’s knowledgeable, sympathetic, understanding and accepting members of society.
Red awareness ribbon represent stroke awareness. To order a custom red awareness ribbon, https://www.personalizedcause.com/personalized-awareness-ribbons/red-awareness-ribbon-pin-personalized?rq=stroke“>click here.
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