According to a news release from the American Academy of Neurology, having a stroke may cut nearly three out of five quality years off your life.

Stroke treatments and prevention strategies to better quality of life for people who have a stroke is worse than researchers expected. They contend that the study’s results reveal a need for a major upgrade in stroke treatment and prevention.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stroke kills nearly 130,000 American annually. On average, one American dies from a stroke every four minutes. Annually, nearly 800,000 people in the U.S. have a stroke. Approximately 610,000 of these are first or new strokes. Twenty-five percent are recurrent strokes.

“These results highlight the severe toll that stroke takes on millions of people every year,” said Peter M. Rothwell, a professor with the John Radcliffe Hospital, in a statement. “This is the first study since the 1990s to look at long-term quality of life after stroke and transient ischemic attack (TIA).”

Researchers followed nearly 750 people who had a stroke and 44 who had a TIA for five years and asked them to complete questionnaires that determine quality of life and utility. The questionnaire assigned a numerical value on the attractiveness of various health outcomes. For example, the values spanned from “worse than death” to “perfect health.”

The study discovered that out of a possible five years of perfect health, people who experienced a stroke lost 1.71 years because of earlier death and another 1.08 years because of a lowered quality of life, leading to a cutback of 2.79 quality-altered life years. The findings differed greatly based on severity of the stroke. For instance, people who experienced a minor stroke lost 2.06 quality-altered years, while those who had a severe stroke lost 4.3 quality-altered years.

“Our study should serve as a wake-up call that we need more funding and research for stroke treatments and secondary stroke prevention measures to improve quality of life in stroke survivors,” noted Rothwell.

The study’s results are discussed in greater detail in the journal Neurology.