Delayed Treatment Steals Months of Life From Stroke Victims

Timely treatment has always been known to be paramount to saving a stroke victim's life, but a new study says that even minutes count, where every minute of faster treatment amounts to nearly two more days of healthy life.

According to a Study published in Stroke in association with the American Heart Association, for every minute a stroke patient could have been treated faster, researchers have found that stroke survivors would have gained an average 1.8 days of extra healthy life. They also found that with every additional 15-minute delay in treatment after the average stroke response time, a patient loses at least one month of disability-free life.

The research team determined these alarming figures after comparing data from all major stroke related medical trials to date with the medical data of over 2,000 stroke patients from Australia and Finland. Analyzing these comparisons, the researchers were able to calculate the life span and quality of life of stroke survival patients had they been treated at the average rate (faster or slower than they had been treated).

The researchers determined a universal standard stroke response time by comparing average stroke treatment response rates in major first-world countries. Interestingly, in addition to determining the average life gained by acheiving timely stroke treatment over all genders and ages, the researchers also were able to determine that young women gained the most additional lifetime with faster stroke treatments.

According to the study's authors, the fastest stroke services in the world are located in Helsinki Finland and Melbourne Australia, with victims receiving treatment in a mere 20 minutes. Most American, Australian, and European treatment centers worldwide take an average of 70-80 minutes before stroke victims receive potentially life-saving treatments.

The study was published in Stoke, a publication of the American Heart Association, on March 13.