Test to tell if stroke victims will recover

A BEDSIDE test taken by people who have had a stroke could be used to predict what their health will be like in the near future, scientists have found.

The ‘thinking skills’ test, which is done in the week after a stroke and grades memory, language and concentration abilities, can identify patients who are seven times more likely to die within three years.

Patients who do badly are more than twice as likely to later struggle with daily activities such as washing and dressing.

The Montreal Cognitive Assessment takes only minutes to complete and is widely used to gauge people who have suffered a stroke. It was also the test that US President Donald Trump passed with flying colours during a medical earlier his year, following claims in a book that he was suffering mental decline.

The results of the study, which followed 274 patients in Germany and France over a three-year period, found it could predict their chances of death, mobility problems and ability to live independently. That is because problems with cognition, or ‘thinking skills’, can be a red flag for wider issues in the brain and circulation problems that lead to potentially fatal high blood pressure and cardiac disease.

Researchers found patients who scored badly a week after a stroke had a survival rate of 83 per cent three years later, compared to 97 per cent for those with no problems.

Dr Martin Dichgans, a co-author of the study from Ludwig-Maximilians University in Germany, said: ‘We found that this test can help predict whether people will have impaired thinking skills, problems that keep them from performing daily tasks and even whether they will be more likely to die.

‘This test should be used to screen people with stroke and to counsel them and their families about longterm prognosis, and also to identify those who would most benefit from interventions that could improve their outcomes.’