What you should know

Impact of a stroke

Every 53 seconds, someone in America has a stroke. Every 3.3 minutes, someone dies of one.

Stroke killed an estimated 158,448 people in 1998 and is the nation's third leading cause of death, ranking behind diseases of the heart and all forms of cancer. Stroke is the leading cause of serious, long-term disability in the United States.

• About 4,500,000 stroke survivors are alive today.
• Data from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Framingham Heart Study, show that about 600,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year. About 500,000 of these are first attacks.
• In 1998 females accounted for 61.4 percent of stroke fatalities.
• According to the Framingham Heart Study, 28 percent of annual stroke victims are under age 65.
• From 1988 to 1998 the death rate from stroke declined 15.1 (15.5) percent, but the actual number of stroke deaths rose 5.3 percent.