
Home / Critical illness cover / - Stroke
Background information
Each year about 100,000 people in this country suffer a first stroke -10,000 of these are under retirement age.
Of those people who have a stroke, around one third die within a year, one third are left with serious disabilities and one third make a good recovery.
Stroke is the largest single cause of severe disability, with 300,000 people being affected at any one time.
(The Stroke Association, 2002)
In 2000, over 60,000 deaths were due to stroke. That's over 160 people dying every day.
(Office for National Statistics, 2001)
Definition
A cerebrovascular incident resulting in permanent neurological damage. Transient ischaemic attacks are specifically excluded.
What does this mean?
As with a heart attack the cause of a stroke is inadequate blood supply, this time to the brain. It can be caused by a blood clot becoming caught in an artery of the brain or the bursting of one of the brain’s blood vessels.
The event that triggers the stroke may result from problems within the body, such as clogged up arteries, or weaknesses in the wall of a blood vessel. Alternatively, a stroke may be caused by an external trauma such as a severe head injury received in a road traffic accident.
After a true stroke there is always permanent brain damage which can cause paralysis to the right or left sides of the body, loss of speech or sight, and other effects such as loss of strength or mobility. In some cases, the damage may be quite minor, but it will depend upon which part of the brain was affected. Transient ischaemic attacks are often known as ministrokes but do not result in permanent damage. They are therefore excluded.





