Taiwanese researchers found that three months after a traumatic brain injury, some individuals experience a 10-fold increase in the risk for stroke. Traumatic brain injuries are not included as one of the major risk factors associated with stroke, but after these results, further research is needed to understand the mechanism behind it.
Sacco, the chair of the Department of Neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, mentioned that traumatic brain injuries can cause other complications, including ruptured or damaged arteries, cardiac injury, or blood clotting disturbances, which could contribute to the increased risk of stroke.
In the study, 23,199 people who suffered a traumatic brain injury between 2001 and 2003 were examined and compared against 69,597 people who did not suffer a traumatic brain injury. As a result, 2.91 percent of people who suffered a brain injury had a stroke within the first three months after their initial injury. In the group of people who did not have a previous brain injury, only 0.3 percent of people suffered a stroke.
The risk of suffering a stroke reduced as more time passed since the initial brain injury. After a year, the risk was 4.6 times greater, and after five years, it was 2.3 times greater, compared to people who did not suffer an initial brain injury.
Certain types of brain injuries affected the stroke risk differently. People who suffered a fractured skull were at 20 times higher risk for stroke than a person who had no injury.
Brain-injured people were also at higher risk for bleeding in the brain, high blood pressure, diabetes, coronary heart disease, arterial fibrillation, and heart failure.
Strokes have serious consequences on the body, so early detection and understanding of risk factors is important to research.
According to the CDC, one in 53 people in the U.S. suffer a traumatic brain injury each year.
