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.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

"Weekend effect" seen in large stroke study

Their response to these facts is completely wrong. The solution is NOT to staff hospitals on weekends with neurologists and MRI techs. This should tell them that maybe they should look at simpler, less labor and knowledge intensive options. Like the MindReader headset or urine testing or brain oximeter or Ischiban headband or the hand-held brain bleed detector
Doesn't anyone out there have a functioning brain? My god, I'm stroke addled and I can easily see what needs to be done and it didn't take any medical training at all.
 http://www.theheart.org/article/1424251.do?utm_medium=email&utm_source=20120712_EN_Heartwire&utm_campaign=newsletter
A study from the UK found disparities in stroke care and outcomes between patients admitted to National Health Service (NHS) public hospitals on a Saturday or Sunday vs a weekday, providing more evidence of the so-called "weekend effect" [1].
The study showed increased mortality, decreased tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) use, increased medical complications, and decreased discharge home for those patients admitted on weekends.
The researchers say "approximately 350 in-hospital deaths within seven days each year are potentially avoidable, and an additional 650 people could be discharged to their usual place of residence within 56 days if the performance seen on weekdays was replicated on weekends."
"The lack of access to urgent treatments at the weekends, such as brain scans and thrombolysis, is worrying and something that could be readily addressed by changes to organizational practice," first author William L Palmer (Imperial College London, UK) said in an interview.
The study was published online July 9, 2012 in Archives of Neurology.

Comprehensive assessment
The study involved 93 621 stroke patients admitted to NHS hospitals from April 2009 through March 2010, of which 23 297 (24.9%) were weekend admissions.
"The study provides the most comprehensive assessment of the weekend effect in stroke care, covering a range of issues critical to patients," Palmer commented.
Statistically significant associations were seen in five of six performance indicators, all of which were consistent with lower treatment levels and poorer outcomes on weekends. The largest effects were seen in rates of same-day brain scans and thrombolysis (both lower on weekends) and in-hospital mortality (higher on weekends). 
Dr James S McKinney III (University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, New Brunswick), said that this latest study on the weekend effect "reinforces the need for stroke patients to be admitted to dedicated stroke centers." McKinney was not involved in the UK study.
Prior work by McKinney's group published last year in Stroke has demonstrated that comprehensive stroke centers that maintain adequate staffing with stroke experts on weekends provide quality care regardless of the day of the week [3].
Palmer and colleagues note in their paper that across London, a major reconfiguration of acute-stroke services implemented since February 2010 has resulted in all patients with acute stroke being admitted to one of eight hyperacute stroke units, where thrombolysis and consultant-led care are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
"Early results indicated that, within six months, thrombolysis rates increased fourfold compared with the same period in the previous year," they concluded.

No comments:

Post a Comment