Memory Problems May Indicate Stroke Risk

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Memory Problems May Indicate Stroke Risk

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor

A decline in cognition or memory problems may indicate that an individual has a

higher risk for stroke, according to neurological researchers.

“Finding ways to prevent stroke and identify people at risk for stroke are

important public health problems,†said study author Abraham J. Letter of the

University of Alabama at Birmingham.

“This study shows we might get a better idea of who is at high risk of stroke

by including a couple simple tests when we are evaluating people who already

have some stroke risk.â€

For the study, researchers gave tests to people age 45 and older who had never

had a stroke, then contacted them twice a year by phone for up to 4.5 years to

determine whether they had suffered a stroke.

The average age of the participants was 67. Strokes were then confirmed by

medical records. A total of 14,842 people took a verbal fluency test, measuring

the brain’s executive functioning skills, and 17,851 people took a word recall

memory test.

The study was part of a larger study called the REasons for Geographic and

Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study. During the study, 123 participants

who had taken the verbal fluency test and 129 participants who had taken the

memory test experienced a stroke.

Those who scored in the bottom 20 percent for verbal fluency were 3.6 times more

likely to develop a stroke than those who scored in the top 20 percent.

For the memory test, those who scored in the bottom 20 percent were 3.5 times

more likely to have a stroke than those in the top 20 percent.

The difference in stroke incidence rates between those with the bottom and top

20 percent of scores was 3.3 strokes per thousand person-years. In general, the

differences remained after researchers adjusted for age, education, race and

where participants lived.

At age 50, those who scored in the bottom 20 percent of the memory test were 9.4

times more likely to later have a stroke than those in the top 20 percent, but

the difference was not as large at older ages.

The study on cognition and stroke will be presented at the American Academy of

Neurology’s meeting in April.

Source: American Academy of Neurology