MONDAY, Sept. 18 (HealthDay News) -- Stroke survivors with high blood pressure run a greater risk of second stroke than those with intermediate blood pressure, researchers report in the September issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Robert C. Kaplan, Ph.D., of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, N.Y., and colleagues studied blood pressure and stroke in 254 stroke survivors aged 65 and older.
The researchers found that stroke survivors with higher blood pressure 261.6 days after stroke ran a higher second stroke risk within 5.4 years. The risk increased 1.42 times per each standard deviation of systolic blood pressure.
Survivors with low or high post-stroke blood pressure had higher mortality risk than those with moderate blood pressure. No link was found between post-stroke blood pressure and heart disease. However, high systolic blood pressure forecast coronary heart disease in younger patients.
"In this observational study of adults aged 65 and older assessed approximately eight months after stroke, low blood pressure was associated with favorable risk of recurrent stroke, although high and low post-stroke blood pressure levels were associated with greater mortality," the authors write.
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