Sep 28, 2018
Published by ESO | 25.9.2018
This statement was jointly prepared by the World and European Stroke Organizations (WSO and ESO), the World Federation and the European Academy of Neurology (WFN and EAN) all of which are specialty societies for neurology and brain health.
Statement
NCDs continue to increase worldwide. Cardiovascular diseases, stroke and dementia are a major concern. Stroke is now ranked the 2nd greatest cause of both disability and death worldwide.
Stroke threatens everyone. Stroke causes paralysis of limbs, impairs vision, gait, language and cognition. It contributes to dementia. Of particular concern is the increasing stroke burden in young adults and its effect on keeping employment, as more than 40% of working age adults with stroke fail to return to work.
The burden of stroke disproportionately affects people living in countries with limited resources, also in Europe. Most stroke survivors carry lifelong physical, cognitive, mental, and socio-economic burdens. A significant proportion of European and Global NCD burden can be attributed to stroke and stroke-related dementia. This issue of NCDs, including stroke and dementia, is highlighted at this month’s UN High Level Meeting in New York.
The importance of stroke is acknowledged by the WHO in ICD 11 where stroke is now included as a disease of the nervous system. This most important change will have dramatic impact on the promotion of brain health and the distribution of resources.
For stroke prevention, it is important to know that 90 % of strokes are linked to 10 modifiable risk factors including hypertension, smoking, obesity, physical inactivity, and unhealthy diet. The same factors apply to ischemic heart disease, the other main cause of global disability and death. The occurrence of an acute stroke has to be considered a major emergency which needs a seamless chain of interventions until recovery. Quality care needs to be provided timely by competent personnel and teams across the whole pathway in an organized and audited manner. This kind of access to adequate stroke expertise should be independent of region, time of day and socio-economic status. These stroke facts were highlighted during last year’s WFN World Brain Day.
Dementia on the other hand is growing globally with ageing populations, and stroke contributes with other NCDs such as hypertension, heart disease, chronic kidney disease and diabetes mellitus to the development of dementia. Rates of dementia may be reduced by modifying these risk factors and both stroke and dementia may be prevented through coordinated action.
Developments in vascular neurology has made stroke and dementia preventable, treatable and increasingly reversible, thus reducing the burden on patients, families and societies. To ensure these developments are more evenly distributed, we will require national, regional and global efforts to increase awareness, make available quality acute stroke treatment, primary and secondary prevention and rehabilitation.
ESO and the patient organization SAFE (Stroke Action for Europe – https://www.safestroke.eu) have just finalized the Action Plan for Stroke in Europe 2018-2030, which is aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The plan has four overarching goals:
1) to reduce the absolute number of strokes in Europe by 10%
2) to treat 90 % or more of all patients with stroke in Europe in a dedicated stroke unit as the first level of care
3) to have national plans for stroke encompassing the entire chain of care, and 4) to fully implement national strategies for multisector public health interventions In this context WSO, ESO, EAN and WFN call upon the WHO European Regional Committee to support its member states to increase their efforts based on these three domains:
Awareness: WHO-Europe should help to strengthen programs that increase awareness of stroke, as risk factors, therapy and rehabilitation.
Access: We will support WHO-Europe with its efforts to remove financial barriers for patients for prevention, detection and treatment of NCDs, including European wide health coverage.
Action: The neurology specialist societies will support WHO-Europe in the development of regional and national strategies, to develop the health-relatedSustainable Development Goals, with the goal to reduce premature deaths caused by NCD by one-third by 2030.
Sep 18, 2018
Conducted by King’s College London on behalf of SAFE in May 2017, the Burden of Stroke Report has now been translated into Greek language. Manuscript translation editing was done by Hariklia Proios, PhD CCC-SLP, Ast. Professor of neurocognitive sciences and rehabilitation, Anna Tsiakiri, PhD Psychologist, Aikaterini Kiriakidou, MD Special Neurologist, Konstantinos Charalampopoulos, MD PhD Special Neurologist and Kalliopi Tsakpounidou, MSc PhD Candidate.
The book will be distributed to the public by the H.N.S.-Hellenic Neurological Society (H.N.S.), the Hellenic Neuropsychological Society (H.NP.S.), the Hellenic Society of Vascular and Endovascular surgery (H.S.V.S.) and the Hellenic (Greek) Stroke Society (Hellenic Society of Cerebrovascular Diseases).
It was presented for the first time in August 31st, 2018, in the board meeting of SAFE in Grand Hotel Palace in Thessaloniki, Greece and will be published by EKDOSEIS GUTENBERG, Printing & Publishing Company – Athens. The aim of the publication is to inform Greek society about the burden of stroke and decrease the rate of this health emergency.
Sep 17, 2018
Reliable, easy to use information on 10 modifiable stroke risk factors all in one place: www.strokeprevention.info
Brussels, 17/09/2018: A SAFE-owned website on stroke prevention and modifiable stroke risk factors goes live today at www.strokeprevention.info.
“We know from the INTERSTROKE study that 10 modifiable risk factors are responsible for 90% of strokes. Our goal is to increase awareness and behaviour change by creating an online resource that will collate all relevant information on the most common risk factors such as: hypertension, physical activity, diet, obesity, smoking, cholesterol, heart disease, alcohol, stress and diabetes.”- said Jon Barrick, the President of SAFE.
This website is a platform which contains all the relevant information on stroke risk factors in an easy and simple format for a range of audiences. All information presented here are in a form appropriate for people with busy lifestyles, unable to digest too much detail at one time, as well as people with disabilities.
Prior to developing this website, our research showed that it was difficult to find consistent and coherent information about stroke prevention in one place online. The problem is that the information is spread across a vast range of different locations: websites, blogs, news portals and e- documents. In addition, many of them are not in a format appropriate for people with disabilities, for example sight impairment.
Note: This website is developed and owned by Stroke Alliance for Europe – SAFE, supported by an educational grant from AMGEN. SAFE retains full editorial control over the content of this website.
About SAFE
The Stroke Alliance for Europe (SAFE) a non-profit-making organisation formed in 2004. It is the voice of stroke patients in Europe, representing a range of patient groups from 30 European countries. SAFE’s goal is to decrease the number of strokes in Europe by advocating for better prevention, access to adequate treatment, post-stroke care and rehabilitation.
For more information about SSOFT and SAFE, please visit www.safestroke.eu.
About Amgen
Amgen is committed to unlocking the potential of biology for patients suffering from serious illnesses by discovering, developing, manufacturing and delivering innovative human therapeutics. This approach begins by using tools like advanced human genetics to unravel the complexities of disease and understand the fundamentals of human biology. Amgen focuses on areas of high unmet medical need and leverages its expertise to strive for solutions that improve health outcomes and dramatically improve people’s lives. A biotechnology pioneer since 1980, Amgen has grown to be one of the world’s leading independent biotechnology companies, has reached millions of patients around the world and is developing a pipeline of medicines with breakaway potential.
In May 2018, Amgen received European Commission approval for Repatha® (evolocumab) to prevent heart attack and stroke in adults with established cardiovascular disease.
For more information, visit www.amgen.com and follow www.twitter.com/amgen.
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Sep 12, 2018
The content below was published by Irish Heart Foundation
Irish Heart Foundation launched a “Chairs Can Kill” campaign this week which hoping to help everybody in Ireland sit less and reduce their risk of heart disease and stroke. But why is sitting bad for us?
Recent research has found that sitting for prolonged periods can have a serious effect on our heart health, regardless of whether or not we are exercising [1]. Here comes the science bit: the body needs energy to stand, so to provide this, enzymes in the leg muscles capture fat from the blood to be used for fuel. When you sit for long periods of time the fat is not captured, so it remains in the blood, increasing your risk of heart disease and stroke. Sitting for long periods of time has also been shown to significantly reduce the level of HDL or good cholesterol, in your blood and this too increases your risk of heart disease and stroke [2].
Here are some general tips to help you reduce your sitting time and reduce your risk of heart disease and stroke.
General tips:
Tip 1: Track how long you sit – Do you know just how long you sit for? Use our calculator on irishheart.ie
Tip 2: Set a goal- Try and reduce the amount of time you spend seated. Set a realistic goal.
Tip 3: Break the habit- Why not stand when you can? Be aware of why and when you sit and try to break the habit.
The Irish Heart Foundation has developed a sitting time calculator to help you calculate just how many hours a day you spend sitting down. You can access the calculator here. Also, download our campaign poster and this week’s infographic here to help spread the word.
In addition, why not share the results of your sitting time calculator and see how you can reduce this over the next four weeks of the campaign. Challenge your colleagues to a ‘sit less competition’ and see who manages to reduce their sitting time the most by the end of the campaign. Make sure to let us know how you are reducing your sitting time throughout the month. You can show your support for the campaign by sharing videos and pictures on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn using #chairscankill.
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[1] Biswas et al., 2015 (doi: 10.7326/M14-1651)
[2] Kravitz, L. (2009) (https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/sittingUNM.html)
Sep 10, 2018
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is an abnormal heart rhythm with rapid and irregular beating. It is estimated to increase the risk of stroke 3 to 5-fold and to be associated with around a quarter of all ischaemic strokes. Additionally, AF is associated with more severe strokes leading to higher mortality and disability.
With support from the BMS-Pfizer Alliance, The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), London, UK published a new sub-analysis that assessed how 11 EU countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United Kingdom) compare against European Society of Cardiology’s recommendations for stroke prevention and #AFib detection. This sub-analysis was published in the “Risk Management and Healthcare Policy” journal.
AF is often asymptomatic and screening is not routinely undertaken in Europe. Accurate information on its prevalence in the general population is therefore not widely available. Some European countries have undertaken screening studies to estimate the proportion of the population affected. They reported rates in the general population ranging from 1.3% (UK, Italy) to 3.9% (Greece), with rates being highly dependent on age. Less data is available from Central and Eastern European countries.
Due to Europe’s ageing population and AF’s strong association with age (0.7% in those aged 55-59 vs. 17.8% in those aged ≥85 years), the prevalence of AF is expected to rise. Using data from the community based Rotterdam Study and population projections from Eurostat, it was estimated that the number of adults over 55 with AF will more than double between 2010 and 2060 from 8.8 million to 17.9 million[117]. An Icelandic study projected the prevalence of AF to rise from 1.9% in 2008 to 3.5% in 2050. (Source: Burden of Stroke Report, 2017)
As stated in the Abstract of this sub-study, all 11 participating countries were found to have policies in place to manage general behavioral risk factors of noncommunicable diseases (NCD), but it was found that more needs to be done to address cardiovascular disease – specifically, stroke risk factors. Although ten of the countries in this study endorse the ESC cardiovascular clinical guidelines, implementation is lacking. Eight out of the 11 countries received the lowest score in regard to raising awareness around stroke, and 7 countries were found not to have a stroke registry. Among physicians surveyed in primary care it was reported that less than 30% of patients over 40 years old were screened for blood pressure, whereas even fewer were screened for atrial fibrillation; in 10 out of the 11 countries, less than 20% of patients over 65 years old were screened for atrial fibrillation.
The findings revealed opportunities for improvement in the primary prevention of stroke which should not be ignored, having in mind that the prevalence of AF is expected to rise significantly over the next few decades.
Sep 7, 2018
Following the publication of EPF’s Transparency Guidelines, European Patients Forum would like to invite you to join a webinar to discuss transparent advocacy in patient organisations.
Health advocacy and lobbying is at the heart of the work of many patient organisations (whether it is local, national or European). Their mission statement often includes promoting a political, regulatory, and societal environment that are more patient-centred.
This means that patient organisations engage in lobbying activities on a regular basis. They do so by contributing the specific perspective of patients and people with chronic conditions to legislative processes, but also by pushing for the recognition and for actions on topics that are not yet necessarily on the political agenda (proactive advocacy). Thanks to Vitor Teixeira from Transparency International, the EPF will share with you the benefits of transparency and advocacy as well as a few practical tips on how to enhance your transparency in advocacy activities.
Practical information
Date: Friday 14th September 2018
Time: 15.30-16.15 CEST
How to register?
Register via this link, by 12 September at the latest. Please note that you will need a strong internet connection to fully enjoy the webinar.
And if I can’t make it?
If you can’t make it at the time of the live webinar, no worries! The webinar will be recorded and made available on EPF website.
