Worldwide, there are nearly 12 million new cases of stroke and 7.5 million stroke-related deaths every year. This means there is a new case of stroke every two seconds and a new stroke-related death every four seconds. Yet few people realise the scale of the scourge and the need to take action to protect their health. Indeed, the public is poorly informed, and even helpless, as it is often difficult to obtain information from overburdened healthcare professionals or to ascertain the reliab...