U.S. Haidressers help in stroke awareness
A pilot scheme in the US involving hairdressers educating their clients in stroke awareness has proved to be a positive move in alerting women to the warning signs.
A University of Cincinnati neurologist, Dawn Kleindorfer, organized dozens of hair stylists to take part in the pilot scheme to teach customers about the warning signs. Doctors trained the stylists who then talked to 400 customers on stroke knowledge as they did their hair and gave them wallet cards with the stroke danger information to take home.
Dr.Kleindorfer said that women having their hair done were “a great captive audience. They’re there for a long time and they are with someone they know and trust. One beautician noticed that a woman’s speech was slurred and recognized it as signs of a stroke. She called for emergency and walked with the woman to her apartment until an ambulance arrived”.
At the start of the pilot scheme only 41% of customers could name three warning signs but by the end the awareness had increased to 51%. The number who were completely unaware of stroke symptoms had declined and awareness of the urgent necessity to ring the local emergency number had increased.
