Screen People Younger Than 50 For Stroke

Dear Sir,

We the undersigned ask that you recommend screening people younger than 50 for stroke in response to the rapid increase of strokes in people ages 30 to 50.

Some recent studies suggest there's a rise in strokes among younger Americans (those younger than 50) -- but doctors (in the U.S. and elsewhere) are unlikely to screen them.

There's a sevenfold risk of misdiagnosis of strokes in younger people and early detection can make a difference. Having conditions like high blood pressure and migraines -- and the hormones in birth control pills -- can increase risk.

Ischemic strokes, which account for about 90 percent of all strokes, result when clots or fatty deposits block blood flow to the brain. Jolene Morton, a 33-year-old, recently had such a stroke. Her doctors never found a clot, only a narrowing in an artery that feeds brain areas critical for motor control, sensory perception and speech.

Morton had to relearn walking, speech and even the ability to feed herself over the next several months. At 33, she was never screened or expected susceptible to stroke.

In 2010, a study in the journal Stroke found that the stroke rate tripled in 35-to-54-year-old women between 1988 and 2004. The next year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported hospitalizations for ischemic stroke increased by more than a third in 14 years in 15-to-44-year-olds. In 2012, hospital records in the Midwest found a 44 percent jump in strokes between 1993 and 2005 among people younger than 55. The same year, researchers at Kaiser Permanente reported an increase in ischemic strokes among people age 25 to 44 between 2000 and 2008.

It's time that people younger than 50 should be screened for stroke!