A quarter of stroke victims stop taking prevention medication

Wednesday, August 18, 2010 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: stroke, medication, health news

(NaturalNews) A new study out of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center has found that at least 25 percent of stroke victims stop taking their prevention medications after having a stroke. Some experts say that this is unwise because the chances of having another stroke within three months after a first stroke are high. But others point to the ineffectiveness of stroke prevention medications in the first place in those who end up have a stroke anyway.

The study, which appears in the journal Archives of Neurology, evaluated more than 2,500 patients from the Adherence Evaluation After Ischemic Stroke-Longitudinal (AVAIL) Registry and found that about 20 percent of stroke victims stopped taking one or more of their medications, and about 3.5 percent of patients stopped taking them all.

The study was designed to assess how and why some patients choose to stop taking their medications following a stroke. But common sense seems to indicate that some people simply lose hope in supposed prevention drugs that fail to prevent strokes.

"The best way to prevent a stroke is by lowering high blood pressure, the number one risk factor. But if it's too late for prevention -- that is, if you're recovering from a stroke -- alternative practitioners offer many ways to help speed your recovery and decrease the odds of a second stroke," explains Bill Gottlieb in his book Alternative Cures: The Most Effective Natural Home Remedies for 160 Health Problems.

Some natural ways to lower high blood pressure include eating fresh garlic, aloe vera juice and getting plenty of potassium in your diet.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-...

http://www.naturalpedia.com/S/Stroke-heart_d...