One Simple Way to Avoid a Stroke:
Monitor Your Blood Pressure
While strokes are more prevalent in older adults, an increasing number of stroke survivors are between the ages of 18 to 65, with a 44% rise in the number of young adults hospitalized due to stroke in the past decade. This may be thanks to stress, smoking, physical inactivity, poor nutrition, obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes … and high blood pressure.
Which is why monitoring your blood pressure is one simple way to avoid a stroke.
Dr. Kyle Chapple, a board-certified neurosurgeon with Atlantic Brain and Spine, offers these simple self-monitoring and prevention tips if you have high blood pressure:
- Take your blood pressure daily at the same time every day.
- Take your blood pressure sitting up and laying down. Differences between the two readings could alert your doctor to a problem that can be treated to decrease your risk of a stroke.
- Visit your doctor routinely.
If you don’t have high blood pressure, Dr. Chapple urges you to have an annual physical. Your primary care physician can compare your blood pressure on a year-to-year basis to identify any early signs of potential issues.
“High blood pressure is most easily managed when it’s identified early,” Dr. Chapple notes. “Follow these simple precautions … because once you are visiting me – instead of your primary physician for those annual checks – you are in a very different medical condition.”
