
After having a stroke, heart attack or cardiac arrest, people are less likely to be employed than their healthy peers, new research shows. Even if they are working, they may earn significantly less than people who haven’t had a stroke or heart event, the investigators found. Although the majority of people who have one of these serious health scares do end up back at work, about 20 percent of those who had a stroke weren’t back at work three years later. Meanwhile, about 5 percent of those who had a heart attack hadn’t gone back to work, while 13 percent of those who’d had cardiac arrest weren’t back on the job after three years. (Cardiac arrest is when your heart suddenly stops beating.) The study also found an average drop in yearly earnings of more than $13,000 after a stroke, about $11,000 after cardiac arrest and nearly $4,000 after a heart attack. “When we look at the impact of health events, we need to look not only at short-term, easy-to-measure outcomes like life and death. Quality of life and economic well-being are equally important to people,” said study author Dr. Allan Garland. He is a professor of medicine and community health sciences at the University of Manitoba and Health Sciences Centre Winnipeg in Canada. Garland said that most people want to work, so it’s important… read on >