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, July 12, 2016

Stroke expert probes the unknown to improve patient care worldwide

Someone who actually gets how fucking bad stroke rehab is.
http://www.ucalgary.ca/utoday/issue/2016-07-06/stroke-expert-probes-unknown-improve-patient-care-worldwide
This the third of a five-part series profiling the University of Calgary’s 2016 Killam Professors
Imagine a giant puzzle of 300 pieces, where only a third have ever been connected.
That is the neurological puzzle of strokes. And the detective work in finding and connecting those remaining pieces of a disease that attacks the brain, and is the leading cause of adult disability worldwide, is what drives Dr. Andrew Demchuk. Every day.
I follow the philosophy that many of the things we do now are wrong and there are better things to come,” says the professor in both the departments of clinical neurosciences and radiology and member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI) in the Cumming School of Medicine. “Half the practice of medicine will change over the next 20 years.”
'There is so much to be discovered'
For the world expert in stroke — and a self-admitted Star Trek fan — the search for these new frontiers has informed his own “To boldly go where no one has gone before” outlook. His version: “There is much to be discovered out there so go out there and discover it.”
And discover he has. Demchuk — one of this year’s recipients of a Killam Annual Professor award— says there is no moment in his 16-year career that can match the results of a recent groundbreaking trial (called ESCAPE) that has led to major change in stroke care around the world.
Demchuk, director of the Calgary Stroke Program since 2004, and his team — including Drs. Michael Hill and Mayank Goyal, “there is no me, there is only us” — led the trial of a new clot retrieval procedure that is changing the face of stroke care. With advanced imaging and incredible speed, doctors using the procedure called mechanical thrombectomy can remove a blood clot in the brain, reducing deaths from the most common type of stroke by 50 per cent.
Now, he is helping other countries shift to treatment that focuses on time-efficient harnessing of imaging technology. That global influence also extends to the education of stroke specialists.
A generous leader who 'gives all the knowledge he has'
The Calgary Stroke Training Program Demchuk has directed for more than 11 years has seen 70 fellowship graduates from 17 countries. Neurologist Fahad Al-Ajlan of Saudi Arabia came to the program when two former fellows in his country told him Calgary was the best place in the world to pursue his interest in imaging. He describes Demchuk as a charismatic, generous leader who “gives all the knowledge he has to you so you can improve care where you are going.”
Demchuk, says Al-Ajlan, also taught him that clinical care of the patient comes first: “He cares a lot about his patients.”
Demchuk went into medicine not only because of his love of science, but because he loves human interaction. Intrigued by the unknowns in the field of stroke, Demchuk was hooked on a career spent unravelling mysteries.
He is Heart and Stroke Foundation Chair in Stroke Research at the University of Calgary; co-leader of the HBI’s Stroke NeuroTeam within the university’s Brain and Mental Health research strategy; co-chair of the Acute Stroke and TIA in the Cardiovascular Health and Stroke Strategic Clinical Network at AHS, and volunteer deputy chair with the Canadian Stroke Consortium.
A complex, challenging puzzle being unravelled in Calgary 
So what is his main passion? “I love my job. There are so many elements; it’s the variety. But the best is seeing patients reverse the effects of stroke with the new (ESCAPE) procedure.”
And then, there are the eureka moments. “It’s when you learn something you didn’t know before. Stroke is a complex, challenging puzzle and we are unravelling those pieces in Calgary.”
  • UToday's series on Killam Professors ends Friday with a look at engineer Raafit El-Hacha’s search for smarter bridge-building materials, and scientist Barry Saunders’ upcoming journey to contemplate black holes and quantum computers.
The University of Calgary is proud to be one of only five universities in Canada supported by the Killam Trusts. Established in 1965 by Izaak Walton Killam and his wife Dorothy J. Killam, the Killam Trusts fund scholarships at the graduate and postgraduate levels. These are among Canada's most prestigious awards for lifetime achievement in Health Sciences, Natural Sciences, Engineering, Social Sciences and Humanities. 
Led by the HBIBrain and Mental Health is one of six strategic research themes guiding the University of Calgary toward its Eyes High goals.

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