Is Stroke Tending towards the Young?

Stroke is a devastating vascular disease of the brain that carries very poor prognosis. It is a disease of the elderly people but recent literature reports that it is occurring more in the young now than hitherto. Nigeria has a young population and if stroke were to occur more in the young now than hitherto, it will have a devastating effect on Nigeria’s economy. This study is to determine whether stroke is occurring more in the young people now than in past decades. The findings will alert the health managers of the impending calamity in its eventuality.

Data on age and sex of stroke patients and year of stroke event were obtained from randomly selected referral hospitals in Southern Nigeria for the period 1973 to 2011. Proportion of stroke occurrence in the young was modelled. Z test was used to analyze the proportion of stroke that occurred classified by age and gender.

The proportion of stroke occurrence in the young has a downward trend from 1973 to 2011 that is best described by cubic polynomial model. Stroke is found to have an almost 50-50 sex distribution but 61% of those that have stroke at 45 years of age or less are found more likely to be females than males. This shows that more females than males are likely to have stroke at the young age of 45 years or less. Stroke is found to be occurring less in the young people now than in the past four decades studied. It is recommended that a prospective study be undertaken over many decades to confirm or negate the observed decreasing trend of proportion of stoke occurrence in the young since 1973. Further study is also recommended to elucidate the factors associated with stroke occurrence in the young.