Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2018 Aug 28;10(8):e3217.
doi: 10.7759/cureus.3217.

Occupational Physical Activity in Young Adults and Stroke: Was It Due to My Job?

Tarig H Balla Abdalla  1 , Ian H Rutkofsky  2 , Javeria N Syeda  3 , Zahid Saghir  1 , Adnan S Muhammad  1
Affiliations
Review

Occupational Physical Activity in Young Adults and Stroke: Was It Due to My Job?

Tarig H Balla Abdalla et al. Cureus. .

Abstract

The association of physical activity and stroke among working young adults and vice versa has increasingly empathized in recent years. Lack of physical activity, along with many other modifiable risk factors, such as hypertension, obesity, atherosclerosis, and diabetes, contributes through vascular dysfunction to the development of adverse cerebrovascular events in the future and has always been a topic of interest in the fields of neurology and stroke rehabilitation. We wrote this review article to elaborate on this relationship in detail. This article suggests that the physical activity role in stroke development and the rehabilitation process has a diverse role, where individuals with low physically active occupations are prone to develop a stroke more readily in comparison with other workers who have a moderate amount of physical activity in their jobs; however, less mobility appeared to be harmful too soon after stroke. In addition, we elucidate the effects of physical activity on sympathetic activity and remodeling of vascular response. Alterations in the neuroendocrine system include several factors. This includes harmful changes caused by increasing levels of epinephrine and norepinephrine. These changes are seen with stress-induced cerebrovascular injury and are often elevated in post-stroke patients. In contrast, post-stroke patients engaged in physical activity may prevent these harmful neurotrophic factors by reducing the elevated levels of epinephrine and norepinephrine. However, we need more studies in the near future to further explore this association process. Therefore, we recommend more research to explore the relationship of occupation-related factors and adverse stroke outcomes.

Keywords: physical activity; stroke; stroke in young adults; stroke physical activity; stroke recovery; stroke rehabilitation; working post-stroke; working young adult stroke; young adult stroke; young rehabilitation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Process involving vascular accidents
NE: norepinephrine; EPI: epinephrine
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Strokes in young adults: epidemiology and prevention. Smajlović D. Vasc Health Risk Manag. 2015;11:157–164. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Age at stroke: temporal trends in stroke incidence in a large, biracial population. Kissela BM, Khoury JC, Alwell K, et al. Neurology. 2012;79:1781–1787. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Contribution of established stroke risk factors to the burden of stroke in young adults. Aigner A, Grittner U, Rolfs A, et al. Stroke. 2017;48:1744–1751. - PubMed
    1. Ischemic stroke in young adults: profile of SARAH hospital brasília From 2008 to 2012. Montanaro VV, Freitas DD, Ruiz MC, et al. Neurologist. 2017;22:61–63. - PubMed
    1. Association between job strain and risk of incident stroke: a meta-analysis. Huang Y, Xu S, Hua J, et al. Neurology. 2015;85:1648–1654. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources