Secondary Prevention of Ischemic Stroke

Stroke is the second commonest cause of death and disability in the developing world. The crude prevalence rate of stroke in India can be as high as 942/100,000 population, although the pooled data suggest a more moderate prevalence rate of 115-203/100,000 and the incidence from 105-124/100,000. Prevention is of utmost importance in lowering the public health impact of stroke, especially because of its high incidence. People at risk need to be identified in order to institute these stroke prevention strategies. Some risk factors, such as age, sex, race-ethnicity and heredity are not modifiable. These serve as markers for those at higher risk. However, there are also multiple modifiable risk factors with numerous options for intervention. The focus of this chapter is to discuss the common modifiable risk factor