Stroke in the young

Early-onset stroke has a major impact on the lives of young people and may serve as a window to understanding stroke in general. It is also common. The prevalence of cerebrovascular disease is more than twice that of MS in adults 18 to 44 years old.1 Almost 120,000 females and 105,000 males in the United States younger than 45 have had a stroke.2 Nevertheless, stroke in the young has received little attention from the scientific community, perhaps because the high incidence of stroke in the elderly overshadows the problem of early-onset stroke and because of the difficulty of conducting research in this population. Articles in this issue of Neurology by Leys et al.3 and Fullerton et al.4 take a step toward filling this gap. Prognosis is an important issue in premature stroke because of the longer expected survival compared with older people with stroke. In addition, those affected by stroke in young adulthood often have primary responsibility for providing …