THE ROLE OF THE FAMILY IN STROKE AND STROKE PREVENTION

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Stroke is a major cause of morbidity and mortality among African-American elderly. This pilot will collect preliminary data on the relationship between measures of family structure and function and l)control of several stroke risk factors in a population at relatively high risk for strike and 2)patient functional outcomes and family adjustment among new stroke patients. We hypothesize that elderly minority individuals with more intact family social, psychologic, and economic structure will be able to achieve improvement of stroke risk factors primarily through superior process of both the medical care which they receive and self-directed health improvement strategies. Two specific investigations will be undertaken. The first of these will be a cross-sectional evaluation of the presence and control of stroke risk factors among patients at risk for stroke because of the presence of either hypertension or diabetes or both of these conditions. The second investigation will focus on a recent post- stroke group of individuals and will evaluate the impact of stroke on the functional adjustment of African American elderly and their families. The overall goal of this investigation is to lead to the generation of specific interventions that may be subsequently evaluated for their efficiency as tools to enable family members to augment stroke prevention strategies for inner city and other African American elderly populations.