I recently was in France and met a friend that talked about time living between the US and France for many years. One of the things she missed about France compared to the US was the freshness of food, the slow paced lifestyle, and the affordability of things such as health care and basic needs. I began to feel envious of her and how life in France sounded so carefree. Then she tells me during her 40 years of marriage to an American he got sick and suffered a stroke while in France. After a couple of weeks of care in France she decided to take him back to America because of the quality of health care particularly the accessibility to specialist in the US compared to France. She and her spouse stayed in the US for his health care and he had access to more equipment to improve his lifestyle after his illness and he had high quality healthcare from a specialist.
One of things she told me that stood out was limited access in France to detect stroke risk. It turns out he was a prime candidate for stroke but wasn't aware. She feels with early detection or at the least a look at his family history would have been helpful.
Detecting risk for stroke doesn't have to be rocket science. However, if you don't have access to preventive screening you can miss out on pertinent information that could effect your health in the future.
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