Stroke Care is Beyond Clinical Responsibility

Abstract

Stroke is defined as a clinical syndrome characterized by rapidly developing clinical symptoms and/or signs of focal, and at times global, loss of cerebral function, with symptoms lasting more than 24 hours or leading to death, with no apparent cause other than that of a vascular origin (1). There were 47, 911 incident cases, 19,928 deaths, prevalence of 443,995 cases, and DALYs' lost of 512,726 due to stroke in 2019 (2). It is estimated that 1 in 4 will experience stroke in their life (3). In Malaysia, strokes are currently the third most common cause of mortality (2). Thus, stroke care warrants the responsibility not only from the clinical provider at the hospital setting but also requires accountability from the community's support network.