Oakwood recommends communication on new stroke guidelines for women

The American Heart Association has issued new guidelines for stroke prevention that could have doctors talking to their female patients sooner, rather than later.

The new guidelines, released last month, outline stroke risks unique to women, including those related to pregnancy, hormones, birth control and other gender-related issues.

They include:

· Preeclampsia and eclampsia, blood pressure disorders that can occur during pregnancy

· Hormone replacement therapy

· Birth control methods

· Atrial fibrillation

· Migraines.

Doctors recognize and warn against many symptoms and risk factors in older women, but the new guidelines mean that physicians should begin discussing them when their patients are a lot younger.

“We see now that we need to have those conversations among younger patients,” Dr. Sandra Narayanan, director of neurology and interventional neuroradiology at Oakwood Healthcare,  and a neurology professor at the Wayne State University School of Medicine told the Detroit Free Press. “The 30- and 40-year olds with stroke — that’s become more common over the past 10 years.”

Women with a history of high blood pressure before pregnancy should now be considered for low-dose aspirin and/or calcium supplement therapy, according to the new guidelines. Women who have preeclampsia have twice the risk of stroke and a four-fold risk of high blood pressure later in life, according to the American Heart Association, so preeclampsia should be recognized as a risk factor well after pregnancy.

The guidelines recommend that women should be screened for high blood pressure before taking birth control pills because they can increase stroke. Women older than 75 should be screened for atrial fibrillation, too, due to its link to higher stroke risk.

Other risk factors, like, smoking, high cholesterol, and obesity in should be treated early. That means not only advising patients, but making sure they understand why they are important, Narayanan said.

“It’s our responsibility to use these guidelines ... to either refer patients to them or let them know we can translate for them,” she told the Free Press.

For more information on stroke symptoms and treatments, visit the Oakwood Stroke Center.