Stroke survivors experience the equivalent of 18 years of cognitive ageing compared with patients without stroke, while cognitive outcomes are unchanged following MI, according to an international team of doctors.

They said post-stroke cognitive outcomes were poorer still in those with more severe or haemorrhagic strokes versus ischaemic stroke.

“Our analyses suggest that the effect of stroke on cognition is substantial and is not primarily due to hospitalisation or acute illness,” the University of Edinburgh-led researchers wrote in The Lancet Healthy Longevity.

Their meta-analysis of six randomised clinical trials involving 64,000 adults (mean age 67) compared cognitive performance before and after stroke, MI, TIA and other hospitalisations against outcomes in controls.