Prof. Anand Pandyan2026-07-292026-07-29https://dspace.academy.edu.ly/handle/123456789/2460WHO (1988) defines a stroke as "rapidly developing clinical signs of focal (or global) disturbance of cerebral function lasting more than 24 hours with no apparent cause other than of vascular origin”. This is a clinical definition, and it does not depend on brain imaging. The WHO definition includes cerebral infarction, subarachnoid haemorrhage and intracerebral haemorrhage. However, subdural haematoma and other traumatic bleedings are excluded since they are usually caused by trauma.Stroke is the second common cause of death, after ischaemic heart disease, and the third leading cause of disability worldwide (Johnson et al., 2016). Over 100 000 people in the United Kingdom suffer from a stroke every year, and this has been a financial strain on the National Health Service costing over £3.6 billion. This figure is likely to increase with an increase in the ageing population of today (Xu et al., 2018). Approximately, a third of stroke survivors remain functionally dependent at one year after a stroke, with the feeling of the disabling impact of a stroke continuing for as long as the stroke survivor lives (Newton et al., 2015).related skeletal muscle changes