I was researching ways to assess the risk of stroke and came across an article about a drawing test that could be administered to a patient that would help to predict your likeliness to die after having a stroke. This idea is interesting to me because it reminds me of brain teasers and things like that, that doctors give to patients with dementia or Alzheimer's in order to keep their brain in tip top shape. This study was conducted by researchers in Sweden and they took a group of 919 white men (they had no history of a stroke incident) and administered a Trail Marking Test. This cognitive test is basically where you have to mark a line in between letters and numbers that have been scattered on the page, in ascending order. The participants progress was monitored over a 14 year period and the age range was from 69 to 75 years old.
One thing about this study that I have an issue with is they don't really mention how this test can possible help to predict whether or not someone will have a stroke and I think that its a more helpful test to measure the amount that someone has recovered after suffering a stroke. I'm still unclear as to how this test will help to predict whether or not you would survive a stroke. I think that in order to explore this type of test being beneficial, they need to broaden their pool of participants and instead of just being white men from 69 to 75 they should test several different age ranges that are known to be the point at which the risk of having a stroke increases. They should also branch out to see if race plays a factor in this type of test. Like they pointed out in the study, there is nothing that is really invasive in this whole process so people don't really feel the need to opt out of the study.
I'd be interested to see the other ways people come up with to help predict risk factors.
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/05may/Pages/stroke-prediction-drawing-test.aspx
This sounds incredibly daunting for someone like me whose idea of a drawing is a stick figure. It would be really interesting to find out if they assessed the artistic capabilities of the person before they had a stroke. With no baseline to compare it to, it seems weird that a new drawing would be able to predict how likely someone is to die. They would probably put me in the 24-48 hour range the way I draw.
ReplyDeleteI am very skeptical about the logic behind this test. I am not really understanding how being able to draw lines to order scattered numbers and letters correlates to a person’s risk of death after suffering from a stroke when health history and lifestyle are dominant factors. Some people are naturally inclined to have better hand-eye coordination. Does this mean people who exercise their brain by maintaining a life of learning and people who work with their hands are thought to have better success on this test? The study in a way skipped the step of testing actual stroke prevention and instead tested how many people would die after the fact. I think the only good thing about taking this test is that I would be more active in leading a healthier life if a test told me I would be very likely to die if I had a stroke.
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