The American Stroke Association is running an awareness campaign called Power to End Stroke, to celebrate the lifestyle and culture of America.

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You would be pleased to know that there are ways by which you can overcome stroke.

The most important thing you need to do is speak to the doctor in charge, who is treating the stroke patient.

After understanding the extent of the brain damage and the resulting disability, you would be in a better position to care for the patient.

Coping is difficult, not just for the patient but also for those around him who are caring for him. Some patients have memory loss, some suffer facial damage, some suffer vision impairment, and some even become completely paralyzed. The extent of the damage depends upon the severity and type of the stroke.

Remember that a stroke is not just about physical damage. To overcome the effects of the patient’s stroke, you should be prepared to make a huge amount of mental and emotional effort. The important thing that you need to realize is that in most cases, a patient never completely recovers from a stroke.

However it is essential to remain patient and positive. Provide as much support as possible, remember that the process of rehabilitation is long and difficult; you need to provide optimum care and comfort. You should also be prepared to see post-stroke psychological trauma in the stroke patient, he might also suffer from anxiety attacks, depression, and would definitely find it hard to adapt to life after the stroke. So you need to stay supportive and help him overcome his stroke. Most stroke patients need a lot of reassurance and patience – so you should be prepared with an abundant supply of that! Remember that with care and love, it is easy to overcome stroke.

These results have been found after tracking the occurrence of stroke and coffee consumption habits in thousands of women in the US during nearly 25 years. There are some earlier indications which show that coffee seems to offer some help in preventing diabetes without increasing heart problems’ risk. The current study is an addition to these earlier indications.

But at the same time, this new finding also warns smokers that smoking can wipe out all the benefits that coffee consumption can otherwise offer for protection.

Rob M. Van Dam, the lead author of the study, says about their findings: “Many people consider coffee as a risk factor for diseases like stroke or think that it can increase the risk of the disease, but what we have found here is that it appears useful rather than harmful.”

The study has been published in the journal Circulation February issue.

To know about the possible association between stroke risk and coffee consumption in women, the researchers looked into data received from nearly 83,000 women who were 55 years of average age for the period 1980-2004. At the beginning of the study, none of these women had a history of heart disease, stroke cancer or diabetes.

The researchers found that women who consumed some amounts of caffeinated coffee   daily had nearly 12% lower risk for becoming the victim of stroke.

Researchers from the Yale University School of Medicine find that sleep apnea becomes the cause of dropped blood flow in the brain while in episodes. When it takes place, the blood pressure of the organ begins to rise and when this happens again and again the ability of the brain to guard itself in these conditions begin to reduce.

A previous study from the Yale researchers suggests that sleep apnea patients have three times higher risk of having a stroke or death during sleep than the people who don’t suffer from this disorder.

Currently, nearly 18m people in the US are suffering from sleep apnea that is a sleeping disorder in which breathing gets hampered or ceased because of the upper airway blockage. It becomes the cause of low blood oxygen levels and rise in blood pressure. However, when the patient briefly awakens, the order restores again.

In their study, the researchers noticed that patient with sleep apnea had considerably lower levels of blood oxygen and blood flow in the lower cerebral.  The researchers also found that patients with sleep apnea took more time to recover from blood pressure drop or restore normal blood flow in the brain.

The study has been published in the Journal Applied Physiology, Jan 09 issue.

Cocaine is available in powder as well as soluble forms and used by inhaling or through injection. Many addicts mix cocaine with heroine and use it for well-known snowballing. It has been observed that this practice become the cause of more deaths than just of heroine abuse only. Crack cocaine is cheap and that’s why highly addictive and can become an epidemic if not checked in a proper way.

Cocaine is well-known for its high addictiveness, as it gives the feeling of extreme energy, astuteness and confidence to the abusers and because of these traits it becomes quite difficult for the abusers to kick that drug.  The user becomes quite habitual to this boost in energy and confidence, and feels somewhat depressed and low when its effects begin to disappear. The user wants to be at the same heights as soon as possible and craves for the drug.

The worst effects of cocaine on the user body are that it takes body to extra hard levels of activity that becomes the cause of damaging heart rates, hypertension, nausea, cramps and increased body temperature. These are only a few well-known symptoms and there are many others that prove catastrophic for overall health. Its long term use can also cause heart attacks, stroke, paranoia and schizophrenia.

According to the researchers, physically active people usually have less severe strokes and can recover easily for long-term.

Dr. Lars-Henrik Krarup, who led the study, says: “If you keep yourself fit, it increases your chance of a life without stroke. But still if you suffer from stroke, it will be of milder severity and you can recover soon.”

“Our findings may be implemented for future prevention campaigns, as people will be told about the useful effects of physical activity even after stroke,” said Krarup.

In their study, Krarup and co-researchers examined the medical records of 265 people who had stroke. The researchers found that all of them were able to walk without help.

All of these persons were interviewed about their weekly exercise habits before their stroke. The researchers found that people who exercised a lot had two times less severe stroke than the people who did little exercise. Further, the people who had exercised a lot had a good chance of recovery for long time.

Dr. Norman M. Kaplan, who is a clinical professor in the Division of Hypertension at the University of Texas, believes that exercise is an important factor to decrease the severity and number of strokes.

Almost 25 percent of U.S. adults are inactive in their spare time, according to the government research. More than half don’t execute physical exertion, enough for a good health and more than 60 million adults are obese.

Generation of children arising in U.S is less active and healthy than their ancestors. One third children are overweight and 16 percent are obese. Schools are gradually decreasing recess and gym time. By high school, a recent study found, less than 25 percent teens are getting an hour of activity a day.

HHS chooses a panel of researchers and professionals to analyze, collective data. The panel concluded that, consistent physical activities can reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke by at least 20 percent, cut down chances of early death, help to avoid hypertension and type 2 diabetes, colon and breast cancer, age related bone fractures, depression and anxiety.

Different people have different requirements of exercise, depending largely upon age and fitness level. Mild exercise adds up for lethargic adults. More fit youngsters could fill up their week’s requirement in an hour with intense exercise, such as jogging, hiking, a bike race or fast laps in the pool.

Children and teens need more vigorous activities for at least an hour daily, say the government guidelines.

The guidelines released by HHS, aim to clear the picture about, how much physical activity is enough to maintain illnesses free life, while explaining facts that there are number of ways to achieve it.

The HHS guidelines advise following tips to the youngsters.

• There is no need to overreact, you can’t achieve fitness in just a day or two. Consistency is the key rule to follow. A walk for an hour in three week days can make a difference as well. Increase your physical activities gradually, such as 30-minute exercise class on weekdays and two-hour bike ride on weekend.
• For aerobic activities, warm up your body first for 10 minutes to build heart rate enough to count.
• You should be able to talk while doing moderate activities but during tough exercises try to avoid talking.
• Children’s should mostly cover moderate or vigorous aerobic activity, such as skateboarding, bike riding, soccer or simple running.
• Children and teens should include muscle-strengthening activities such as sit-ups, tug-of-war and bone-firming activities, jumping or skipping, thrice in a week.
• Adults should include muscle-strengthening activities such as, push-ups, weight training, carrying heavy loads, at least twice in a week.
• Older adults who are still able to act on the guidelines should do so, with an emphasis on activities that tend to improve balance.

“The easy message is get active, whatever your way is. Get active your way,” HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt said.

The types of exercise matters a lot, said Dr. William Kraus, a Duke University cardiologist who co-authored the scientific report.

“If you do it more intense, you can do less time,” explained Kraus, who admired the official guidelines for such flexibility. “This brings it back down to earth for a lot of people.”

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According to the study author Sylvain Dore, the activity of free radicals that attack and kill cells can be neutralized with the help of this ginkgo extract.

“It’s quite interesting as we are examining a mechanism of action that has not been anticipated before,” Dore said.

The findings will be published in the Oct.10 issue of the journal Stroke.

There was a quick skeptical response on this report from Dr. Larry B. Goldstein, who is director of the Duke University Stroke Center.Goldstein said: “basically, this study is an animal model study trying to know about the central mechanism of ginkgo as a neuroprotective medicine. Though we have been treading this pathway a hundred times before, none of these animal models could prove to be effective in producing FDA-worthy evidence. ”

In their study, Dore and team worked with normal as well as mice bred with lack the enzyme heme oxygenase. They gave standardized doses of the extract to some mice for seven days while others were kept without it. Afterward, they blocked the brain arteries of the mice to cause a stroke.

The researchers noted that normal mice that were given ginkgo extract were found with 50.9 percent less neurological damage.