Elderly Women with Irregular Heartbeatat Higher Risk for Stroke Than Men

According to research, it’s possible that older women who have been diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat are at higher risk of stroke than men.

A recent study led by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre shows that warfarin, the most common anticoagulant therapy used to prevent stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation, may not be as effective in women, 75 years or older, as in men.

 “Our results suggest that elderly women with atrial fibrillation may need to be targeted for more effective stroke prevention therapy,” said Dr. Louise Pilote, corresponding author of the study and researcher in epidemiology at McGill. “Knowing the stroke risk is higher in women is something that both physicians and patients should be focusing on,” said Pilote, whose study results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Atrial fibrillation is the most common cardiac arrhythmia, a condition involving an irregular heart rhythm. Generally, the risk of developing atrial fibrillation increases with age and with other risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure and underlying heart disease. People with atrial fibrillation have a risk of stroke that is five times greater than those in the general population

For more about the study, visit http://muhc.ca/newsroom/news/elderly-women-irregular-heartbeat-higher-risk-stroke.