Cerebrovascular accidents in Trinidad - abstract

ABSTRACT

Cerebrovascular accidents (CVA) are the commonest cause of death in Trinidad and the purpose of this paper is to determine the incidence of CVA among patients admitted to a large general hospital, and to examine the age, sex and racial distributions, mortality rate and roles played by hypertension and diabetes in this disease. There were 279 patients over the age of 10 years who were admitted to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital with CVA in 1968 and 1969. There were almost equal number of males as females. Of 246 patients 23 percent were East Indian and 77 percent non East Indian in ethnic origin. 58 percent of patients were 60 years and older and only 2.5 percent were under 40 years of age. 46.5 percent of patients died during admission and of the survivors 69 percent stayed up to 2 weeks in hospital. There was a past history of hypertension in 35 percent of patients, though about twice that number had a diastolic pressure over 100. A previous stroke had occurred in 12.5 percent of patients. In 15.7 percent of patients there was a past history of diabetes mellitus which is a much higher incidence than that reported from Nigeria and Senegal. Because of the importance of hypertension and diabetes as diseases associated with CVA, it is concluded that better management of these 2 diseases would be an important preventative measures in combining CVA (AU)