Vasculitis patients at risk during times of stress

Patients with vasculitis who are in remission are at a greater risk of the disease flaring up if they are experiencing stress, according to a recent study.

Researchers at the Hospital for Special Surgery are the first to discover that mental health is a risk factor in patients with vasculitis.

Dr Robert Spiera, director of the Vasculitis and Scleroderma Program at the Hospital for Special Surgery, stated: "You should pay attention to the patient's mental well being and be more aggressive about intervening if a patient is in a bad place."

Stress has also been attributed to increased stroke risk.

In a study at the University of Gothenburg, it was found that self-reported feelings of prolonged psychological stress directly correlated to ischemic strokes.

Some 566 acute stroke patients and 593 controls were asked to rate their stress levels.

They were then split into stressed and non-stressed groups, which revealed that those who lived through periods of prolonged stress also experienced large vessel disease, small vessel disease and cryptogenic stroke.

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