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Despite a decrease in stroke mortality, the global burden of stroke is increasing worldwide, hence the importance of improving prevention, acute treatment and rehabilitation. Nume- rous randomized clinical trials have been performed in the acute treatment of the three main varieties of stroke, namely acute cerebral ischemia, intracerebral hemorrhage and suba- rachnoid hemorrhage. They have all shown that " time is brain ". Stroke, however, is only the tip of the iceberg: MRI studies have shown the frequency of silent ischemic and hemorrhagic lesions contributing to cognitive impairment and eventually to dementia. This again underlines the needfor effective prevention strategies to reduce the incidence of stroke.