Stroke Speeds Long-Term Brain Deficits

Does this mean I'm going to lose my mind like Charley did in Flowers for Algernon? I guess I'll have to hurry up and accomplish everything I want to do before I become a blithering idiot. (No snide comments, I'm sensitive) No wonder doctors treat us like children.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/ISCNeuroEdition/44342?
Stroke not only acutely attacks the mind, but also hastens its decline, long-term cognitive testing showed.
Global cognition and executive function decreased significantly faster after a stroke than seen among those the same age without a stroke, Deborah Levine, MD, MPH, of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and colleagues found.
Other measures, such as new learning and verbal memory, also showed acute drops, but without significantly accelerated worsening thereafter, the researchers reported here at the International Stroke Conference (ISC).
"Regardless of whether there was an acute drop and/or a change in slope," Levine told MedPage Today, "the changes are so significant that it will take years for stroke survivors to recover that lost cognitive function, if they do at all."
Long-term cognitive impacts of stroke won't likely come as a surprise to many in the field, she acknowledged, though it hadn't been proven that the stroke is still worsening cognition years afterward.

Action Points

• Note that these studies were published as abstracts and presented at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More at link.