Deans' stroke musings: Frontal Cortical Atrophy as a Predictor of Poststroke Apathy

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, June 15, 2016

Frontal Cortical Atrophy as a Predictor of Poststroke Apathy

This is so fucking simple to explain the cause of apathy. Your doctor gives you no information on your recovery possibilities or even the stroke protocols you will be using with efficacy percentages. With no clue on your recovery apathy can result. Solve the correct problem, protocols and rehabilitation, not Frontal Cortical Atrophy. Don't they teach cause and effect in college anymore?

Frontal Cortical Atrophy as a Predictor of Poststroke Apathy

¹Second Department of Neurology, Comenius University Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia
²First Department of Radiology, University Hospital Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia
³Department of Computer Science, Comenius University Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Bratislava, Slovakia
⁴Institute of Normal and Pathological Physiology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia

Ján Mihalov, Second Department of Neurology, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia and University Hospital Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia. Email: jan.mihalov@gmail.com

Abstract

The aim of the study was to identify associations between the symptoms of poststroke apathy and sociodemographic, stroke-related (severity of stroke, degree of disability, and performance in activities of daily living), and radiological correlates. We determined the degree of cortical and subcortical brain atrophy, the severity of white matter and basal ganglia lesions on baseline computed tomography (CT) scans, and the localization of acute ischemia on control CT or magnetic resonance imaging scans in subacute stages of stroke. During follow-up examinations, in addition to the assessment of apathy symptoms using the Apathy Scale, we also evaluated symptoms of depression and anxiety using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. The study included 47 consecutive patients with acute ischemic stroke. Correlates significantly associated with apathy, determined at baseline and during follow-up, were entered into the “predictive” and “associative” multiple regression models, respectively. Frontal cortical atrophy and symptoms of depression were most strongly associated with poststroke apathy symptoms. In order to model an interrelation between both cortical atrophy and white matter lesions and aging, we supplemented 2 additional “predictive” models using interaction variables, whereby we confirmed the role of frontal cortical atrophy as a predictor of poststroke apathy also as a function of the increasing age of patients.