 Hello, I am Dr. Parul Dubey, Consultant Neurologist working at Manipal Hospitals Goa. I have experienced of around 10 years in treating various neurological disorders like stroke, epilepsy, headache, movement disorders, peripheral neuropathies, muscle disorders, etc. I'll be giving you some information about stroke. While people are quite aware about the heart stroke, brain stroke is a relatively lesser understood problem among the people. Stroke means the word has come from strike from the blue as if something strikes out of the blue. Suddenly something hits the brain and one side of the body gets paralyzed. That is what a brain stroke is. A brain stroke can occur due to a lack of blood supply to the brain or sometimes they can be bleeding in the brain also which can lead to paralysis. Only paralysis of one side of the body is not the manifestation of stroke. Sometimes there may be just a speech difficulty, there may be just a facial deviation, there may be a balance problem. Suddenly stroke is diagnosed by a CT scan or an MRI. What are the risk factors that can lead to a stroke? It can be high blood pressure, high blood sugar that is diabetes, increasing age is a risk factor for stroke. Males are more at risk of having a stroke compared to females but that does not mean that females do not get a stroke. They do get strokes as well. Cardiac problems can lead to strokes. Cardiac rhythm issues can lead to strokes. Smoking, alcohol, sometimes obstructive sleep apneas, a sedentary lifestyle, all these are the usual risk factors for stroke. In order to prevent a stroke for the very first time in life it is important that all these risk factors should be controlled. Which includes a healthy lifestyle with a regular exercise routine, maybe a moderate exercise aerobic activity about 5 times a week is a good idea. Managing one's weight, having a balanced diet, avoiding too much of fat and an extra salt. Also to take care of the basic parameters of BP, sugar, by doing a regular health checkup may be on an early basis is a good idea.