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|  my personal edition > stroke > news  
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DGDispatch 
Screening Programmes Improve Stroke Prevention: Presented at NASMBy Lynn Haley Special to DG News
SAN DIEGO, CA -- August 19, 2001 -- Stroke screening programmes provide some improvement in identifying and managing those patients most at risk for developing a stroke. Researchers from Mercy Healthcare in Sacramento, California, conducted a stroke-screening event following National Stroke Association (NSA) guidelines, providing health screening, counselling and education to 186 attendees. A physician or nurse supplied counselling, and physician follow-up was ordered for those patients determined to be a risk. The investigators presented the results of this stroke-screening event at the 2001 North American Stroke Meeting held here August 15th-18th. Knowledge of the issues surrounding stroke was evaluated using a questionnaire prior to, and following the event. Those patients who had been identified as being at risk were followed up via telephone three months after the screening event was staged. Follow-up involved a questionnaire, which determined whether the patients had retained any of the knowledge provided during the screening session, and whether they had taken any specific action as a result of the findings during the screening process. Researchers found that of the 186 patients who had attended the screening session, 113 of them had been identified as being at risk for developing a stroke, with treatable risk factors noted. Seventy-eight screening participants were contacted by phone three months after the event. Fifty-nine percent of those deemed at risk were able to identify stroke symptoms prior to the event, 96 percent post-event and 77 percent at three months. At three months, 19 percent remembered that they were considered at-risk for stroke, and 73 percent reported that they had done nothing to change their lifestyle or health practices since attending the screening. Nine-percent reported they had followed up with a doctor, and six percent said they had implemented dietary changes. Community-based screening programmes do provide improvement, the researchers concluded, but only of a transient nature. It does not appear to provide long-term change in knowledge or in prevention practices.
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