Deans' stroke musings: When statin therapy stops: implications for the patient

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

When statin therapy stops: implications for the patient

Be careful out there and listen to your doctor. From the 2011 Canadian Stroke Congress.
http://journals.lww.com/co-cardiology/Abstract/2009/09000/When_statin_therapy_stops__implications_for_the.11.aspx

Abstract

Purpose of review: To discuss recent findings on the implications of statin discontinuation.

Recent findings: The beneficial effects of statins in decreasing inflammatory markers, cardiovascular events, cardiovascular mortality, and all-cause mortality in patients with and without a history of cardiovascular disease have been underscored in past and recent studies. However, patients often do not adhere to their statin therapy. Discontinuation rates, though improved over time, remain high not only in primary but also in secondary prevention patients in the clinical practice. Recent studies have found that discontinuing statins, particularly after acute events (e.g. acute myocardial infarction or stroke), has a harmful effect on cardiovascular outcomes and all-cause mortality; patients who discontinued their statin therapy had worse outcomes than those who were never prescribed statins. This could be attributed to a biological rebound phenomenon.

Summary: Statin therapy has a number of beneficial effects on patient outcomes and should be prescribed according to current cardiovascular disease guidelines. Importantly, statin discontinuation is associated with harmful outcomes. Clinicians should become more aware of these effects and counsel their patients to adhere to their statin therapy. Current evidence suggests that, unless contraindicated, statins should not be discontinued, especially after an acute vascular event.