Having a stroke is certainly a serious event; nearly 10% of all male deaths and 13% of female deaths are a direct result of a stroke.
Even those that survive the varied debilitating effects can be completely life changing.
A new campaign being launched by the U.K.’s Department of Health will place great emphasis on rapid action in order to reduce the number of deaths and attempt to limit damage caused to the brain by strokes.
The campaign will emphasize the way in which a stroke can affect a person’s ability to speak as well as those recognizable contortions of the facial muscles.
The posters, newspaper, and TV advertising will point out how important it is to get a suspected stroke victim to a hospital at the earliest possible moment.
The campaign will attempt to explain how a stroke is an ongoing event spreading through the brain like a fire moving onward until it burns out.
The point being that it is not an instant event, and therefore the sooner the “fire” can be extinguished at the hospital the more chance the victim has of living or having less permanent damage.
The advertising also points out that over a quarter of all strokes happen to people under retirement age.
