Deans' stroke musings: OHSU study points to advances in stroke treatment

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.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

OHSU study points to advances in stroke treatment

I know these people are congratulating themselves but there are still lots of questions to be answered. Has the cascade of death been solved? Glutamate poisoning, excitotoxicity, non-opening of capillaries due to pericytes. MRIs on a daily basis would prove it one way or the other.
http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=132829796860830800

A new procedure to help people in the crucial first hours after they have suffered strokes may soon be the standard of care, according to an Oregon Health & Science researcher who contributed to a study released Friday.

Traditionally, victims of strokes – which involves clots blocking the flow of blood to the brain – are treated with a corkscrew-like device that is twisted into the clot and gently pulled out. The new procedure opens the blocked artery by inserting into the brain a small mesh stent made of platinum and titanium. The stent expands the interior walls of the artery and allows blood to get to the patient’s brain. The clot is captured by the sent and after a few minutes the stent and clot are removed together.

A study of the new procedure was presented this morning at a medical conference in New Orleans. The study involved more than 140 stroke patients at 18 medical centers throughout the U.S., 35 of whom were treated at OHSU.

The new stent procedure appeared more effective than a traditional device, according to the study. More than half the patients treated with the stent were classified as having “excellent neurological outcomes.”

Only one in three with the corkscrew procedure earned that designation.

In addition, 17 percent of the patients treated with the stent died, compared to 38 percent treated with the traditional device.

Wayne Clark, director of the Oregon Stroke Center at OHSU and a co-author of the study, says Covidien, which manufactures the stent and funded the study, is applying for approval of the device from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“I really think this is going to be a game changer,” Clark says.