Current Epidemiologic Status of Stroke

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the epidemiological data of stroke patients admitted to Dong-Eui Hospital. METHOD: We performed a prospective study on 1370 cases of stroke consecutively admitted to the hospital from June, 2001 to May, 2002 during hospitalization by medical records and questionaire. RESULT: The highest incidence of the stroke was noted in the group of 60 years of age. The proportion of stroke subtypes were infarct (75.2%), intracranial hemorrhage (21.2%), and subarachnoid hemorrhage (3.6%). Sixteen percents of patients arrived over 24 hours after onset of stroke. The seasonal incidence was in order of frequency of spring, winter, autumn, and summer. The highest occurrence of the stroke was noted in May. The onset time of stroke was highest between 7 00 am and 8 00 am. Risk factors in stroke by the order of frequency were hypertension (61.1%), abnormal EKG at admission (45.5%), hyperlipidemia (38.3%), smoking (36.6%), previous stroke history (24.7%), and diabetes mellitus (24.7%). The common complications during hospitalization were pneumonia (7.6%), gastritis (5.6%), depression (4.8%), and hepatitis (4.6%). CONCLUSION: Although the results of this study obtained from one local hospital in Korea, they are valuable as basic epidemiologic data of stroke for the rospective community- based study in the future.