Deans' stroke musings: Migraine or stroke? Diagnostic test could provide answer

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.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Migraine or stroke? Diagnostic test could provide answer

Could be quite useful, especially for those hypochrondriacs.
http://www.medcitynews.com/2012/04/migraine-or-stroke-diagnostic-test-could-provide-answer/
Researchers from the University of Cincinnati are behind a startup that’s developing a medical device to help emergency doctors diagnose a severe type of headache that could be a warning sign for stroke.
Xanthostat Diagnostics’ device would analyze cerebral spinal fluid to determine if patients are suffering from sentinel subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), a painful headache that can signal a stroke. If undiagnosed — or even sometimes when they’re diagnosed — these major hemorrhagic strokes can lead to death.

Each year, roughly 1 million patients show up in emergency rooms with symptoms such as severe headache, nausea and dizziness. Emergency doctors must then determine the patient’s medical issue from among the three most likely: severe headache, meningitis or SAH, according to the University of Cincinnati (UC).“While there are only about 30,000 cases of SAH in the U.S. annually, the significant chance for the catastrophic or even fatal outcome that can result from misdiagnosis of these million patients annually make this one of the most important diagnostic decisions faced by emergency room physicians,” said Fred Beyette Jr., a UC professor and member of the Xanthostat team.
Doctors typically perform a spinal tap to obtain cerebral spinal fluid that is then subjected to a chemical assay to diagnose SAH. The problem with the chemical assay is that it takes several hours to deliver results and the presence of blood in the spinal fluid sample decreases the test’s accuracy.
Visual inspection of spinal fluid by physicians is another option, but that can be imprecise and is also subject to inaccuracy.
Xanthostat’s test would be an improvement on current practices because it delivers results faster and isn’t as susceptible to accuracy problems caused by blood, according to UC.
UC received a patent on Xanthostat’s core technology last year. The company has transitioned its diagnostic technology from a research-based proof-of-concept to a functional prototype.
Beyette and a UC spokeswoman didn’t respond to inquiries.