Want to Save Some Lives? Here is a Simple Formula for Identifying Strokes By Don Hazen,

Do you know when someone might be having a stroke and what to do about it? I didn't, and it spooked me. My sister died earlier this year -- probably from a stroke. But she lived far away from me, and when she noticed something might be wrong, she insisted she didn't want to go to a hospital. She was found dead the following morning.

So, the bottom line is that it is very possible for a bystander to recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

• S -- Ask the individual to SMILE
• T -- Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK (coherently) A SIMPLE SENTENCE (E.g. "It is sunny out today.")
• R -- Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS

If he or she has trouble with any one of these tasks, call 999/911 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

And to remember these three questions, try very hard to remember the letters STR, and remember that they stand for Smile, Talk, Raise. Maybe remember them as the first three letters of the word “stroke.”...