Quality of Life Among Women Stroke Survivors Worse than Men: Study

Recovering from strokes is far more difficult for women than men, a latest study states.

The study conducted on 1,370 patients aged between 56 and 77 found that quality of life among women stroke survivors was worse than men.

The participants were from the AVAIL registry, a national, multicenter, longitudinal registry of ischemic stroke and transient ischemic attack patients. The researchers examined the patients' quality of life at three months and one year after a stroke or transient ischemic attack.

The research team observed the mobility, daily activities, self-care, depression/anxiety and pain among the participating patients.

"We found that women had a worse quality of life than men up to 12 months following a stroke, even after considering differences in important sociodemographic variables, stroke severity and disability," lead researcher Cheryl Bushnell, M.D., associate professor of neurology at Wake Forest Baptist, said in a press release. "As more people survive strokes, physicians and other healthcare providers should pay attention to quality of life issues and work to develop better interventions, even gender-specific screening tools, to improve these patients' lives."

Furthermore, the researchers found that women were significantly more likely to report mobility problems, pain, anxiety and depression three months after the stroke than men. Even after a year of stroke, the researchers stated that women's quality of life did not fare well as opposed to men.

"We found that age, race and marital status accounted for the biggest differences between men and women at three months, with marital status being the most important," Bushnell concluded, via the news organization. "Even though the women in the study were older than the men, our study showed that age really had very little effect on quality of life."

However, on a positive note, the study also showed that more number of people now survive stroke. More information regarding the study can be found via the journal 'Neurology.'