BATON ROUGE — A stroke results from a blocked or torn blood vessel that decreases blood flow to the brain. In the U.S., stroke is a leading cause of death and disability.

"Because about 80% of all strokes are preventable, we really focus on prevention," neurologist Stephen English said. 

Tips for lowering stroke risk include maintaining blood pressure under 130 over 80 and keeping cholesterol and blood glucose at appropriate levels.

"Things like smoking cessation, treatment of sleep apnea with a CPAP device, and some other potential treatments (are modifiable risks.) We want to make sure that the risk factors are mitigated to help reduce the long-term risk of stroke," English said.

There are risk factors for stroke that cannot be changed. These include age, sex, race and family history.

"There are four nonmodifiable risk factors we typically think about. The first is age, so age greater than 55; males; people that have a family history of prior stroke; and then people that are of African American descent," English added.