124% increase in F.A.S.T. awareness

The Irish Heart Foundation’s Act F.A.S.T. campaign has helped save up to 100 stroke sufferers from death or permanent severe disability after achieving a staggering 124% increase in public awareness of stroke warning signs.

A new survey conducted for the Irish Heart Foundation by Red C and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) showed that those who could identify two or more stroke warning signs had increased from 30.7% to 68.7% a year into the campaign which was launched in May 2010.

The heightened awareness over the past year has triggered an upsurge in the numbers of patients receiving clot-busting thrombolysis treatment of up to 300% in some hospitals, which has resulted in an estimated 80-100 extra lives saved of patients who survived their stroke or were spared from sustaining such severe disability that they would require institutional care for the rest of their lives.

Said Irish Heart Foundation Head of Advocacy, Chris Macey: “These statistics show just how crucial our charity’s F.A.S.T. campaign is to the delivery of improved acute stroke services in Ireland. The HSE has made a commitment to deliver 24/7 thrombolysis in every hospital admitting acute stroke patients by the end of 2011. But to maximise the life-saving and disability reducing potential of these services, people have to help themselves by being able to identify a stroke when it strikes.” It is expected that some 450 extra stroke patients will be thrombolysed countrywide during the course of 2011.

However, despite the spike in awareness of stroke warning signs, there was a more modest increase in the numbers whose first response to a stroke would be to call an ambulance – up from 47.1% to 57.6%.

Mr Macey added: “There would be little point in people knowing when they’re having a stroke if they don’t know that the only reaction is to call an ambulance immediately. The average stroke destroys two million brain cells every minute, which means the quicker you get emergency treatment, literally the more of your brain can be saved.

“By getting to hospital quickly, stroke sufferers can have a profound impact on their own outcome. For those who delay it can mean the difference between walking out of hospital on your own steam within days of a stroke and spending the rest of your life in institutional care, or even death.”

Mr Macey said the statistics showed that over-65s were 58% less likely to have the intention to call an ambulance in the event of stroke. “This reluctance among older people to seek emergency help is deeply worrying and suggests they may be afraid of wrongly identifying a stroke and being seen as a nuisance. We must make everyone understand that even if they’re in doubt they must call an ambulance.”

Anne Hickey, who led the survey at the RCSI, said the number of people who could describe what a stroke is increased from 38.8% to 81%. However, the numbers who knew two or more risk factors for stroke rose just over one per cent from 70.8% to 72%. The most common risk factors identified were smoking, being overweight and lack of exercise.

She added that analysis showed that men were less knowledgeable about stroke than women. For example, men were 30% less likely to know two or more warning signs of stroke and 33% less likely to know stroke risk factors.