Recently, I got an email chain letter from my mother. Because it was health related, I was immediately very suspicous. Time to Google the item and send an email to Mom, I thought, noting that unless the email has working links to respected medical sites, delete it.
Which is generally a good policy - though my research revealed this email to be generally on the mark. So here's the key information in the stroke email, plus an explanation:
"Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke. Now doctors say any bystander can recognize a stroke asking three simple questions:
1. Ask the individual to smile.
2. Ask him or her to raise both arms.
3. Ask the person to speak a simple sentence.
If he or she has trouble with any of these tasks, call 9-1-1 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher."
"The simple three-item examination is known as the Cincinnati Prehospital Stroke Scale (CPSS) and has been successfully used by health care professionals in stroke screening. The focus of the research was to see if the CPSS could be used by the general public. The study recruited stroke survivors who still had some symptoms. They then asked 100 non-patient visitors to the University of North Carolina Hospital emergency room to use the CPSS in telephone script form. The researchers concluded that bystanders correctly administered the CPSS 96 percent of the time."
So this one's for real, and I can recommend the tips. Extensive and reliable information about preventing, detecting and treating stroke can be found at the American Stroke Association's web site.
I'll add this caution, however, from BreakTheChain.org:
"That said, BreakTheChain.org recommends strongly against relying upon or forwarding health information via e-mail chain letters. The medium is unreliable and in many cases (such as the Cough CPR chain letter), with which the above chain began circulating in late 2004, the advice can be more harmful than helpful."
In general, BreaktheChain.org is an excellent resource for these sorts of things, and worth your time. If you're reading this, odds are you grok the net better than many people you know, and bogus chain emails can lead epople to do dangerous and harmful things.
This one checked out, but in future - pay BreakTheChain.org a visit when your friends send you these emails, and don't hesitate to bust the bogus health items in particular. That's at least as much of a life-saver as those (true!) stroke recognition tips.
I think you got the link to BreakTheChain.org incorrect.
Nope, link works for me.
tbe last link has an extra character in it after .org
http://www.breakthechain.orgl/
Ah, thanks for that. Fixed, my apologies.
www.snopes.com is another good place to check. It even has links to email the story page to the person who sent the email to you.
I myself used to rely on alt.folklore.urbanlegends; or more percisely on their archives-slash-website at http://urbanlegends.com. But the site has since gone dead, and the url now occupied by squatters. Snopes works, though...