nsive therapy aggressive (Adams, Caplan, Russell, 1990). As indicated, recognition is regarded as the most important area regarding strokes. To a large extent, this emphasis has served to reduce strokes in America. Part of this reason may be due to the aggregate decline of cigarette smoking. At least this was concluded by the Framingham Heart Study, which concluded that risk of stroke was proportionate to the number of cigarettes smokes, and those who smoked more than 40 cigarettes per day was approximately twice that of those smoking fewer than 10 per day. As indicated, stroke may be related to a number of causal factors. Many individuals who have suffered strokes can trace this disorder to brain injury. To this extent, researchers have also emphasized appropriate medical care which assumes this vantage. Example: The transmission of electrical impulses in the brain can be impaired either by damage to blood vessels that supply the nerve cells or by direct damage from injury or disease to the nerve pathways themselves. Restoration of blood flow or of transmission of nerve signals does not always result in restoration of function, however, because brain cells may continue to die due to damage from oxygen-free radicals, substances the body produces in response to trauma. No one knows why these substances are produced, but much research is being devoted to developing drugs that will limit the damage they cause to brain cells following brain injury as a result of external trauma or disease. Upjohn Company of Kalamazoo, MI is testing a class of drugs its calls lazeroids, names after Lazarus, the man raised from the dead in the Biblical story. By blocking the action of oxygen-free radicals, these drugs have already shown promise in restoring muscle function in laboratory animals after nerves are severed. It is hoped they will eventually prove useful in treating brain damaged stroke and accident victims as well as slowing the brain cell damage ...
