Regular aerobic physical activity, depending on the degree of disability presented as a result of the stroke helps to reduce the risk of relapse in five years after the first stroke – explains Dr Simona Marcheselli, Head of the Operational Unit of Urgent Neurology and Stroke Unit of Humanitas. – Adopting a healthy lifestyle, including abstaining from cigarette smoking, adequate nutrition and body weight management, as well as aerobic physical activity, also helps to prevent and manage other cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension, dyslipidemia and diabetes mellitus. Since about one in four patients affected by stroke risks, may have a second event in the course of their life, it is easy to understand how important it is to manage risk factors. Furthermore, it must also be taken into account that a recurrence is more likely to happen in the case of ischemic stroke, i.e. when a poor blood perfusion to the brain causes an infarction of the cells nourished and irrigated by an artery, and therefore cells die, and in the case of transient ischemic attack, always in the first days after the first event, rather than hemorrhagic stroke, which in the elderly is caused by the rupture of a small deep artery that irritates the brain; in young people, however, it is caused by rupture of a cerebral aneurysm. In both cases, arterial hypertension plays a crucial role.
