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.

Friday, March 10, 2017

Research into a smart chip that could save lives of stroke sufferers has been supported and funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).

This means we could get away from needing neurologists and no longer have misdiagnoses. Both excellent outcomes if we could get stroke leadership to drive these results.
http://www.nihr.ac.uk/news/chipping-away-at-stroke/5509
Stroke is the fourth single leading cause of death in the UK, with more than 100,000 strokes occurring each year. That is around one stroke every five minutes, according to recently published statistics by the Stroke Association. Stroke can also leave people severely disabled.
Even though stroke has become a common condition worldwide - every two seconds, someone in the world will have a stroke - it can still be difficult to diagnose.
A biosensor, called SMARTchip, has been designed to detect whether a person has had a stroke or not. The development of the SMARTchip has been led by Professor Nicholas Dale from Warwick University. The clinical trial aspect of the study has been led by Professor Chris Imray at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust.
Professor Christine Roffe, NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN) Stroke Specialty Lead for West Midlands, explains: “The biosensor is trying to identify an increase in the level of purines in the blood, as it is believed to be an indicator of a stroke.”
Professor Roffe, who has been part of the research team to assess its effectiveness, said: “One third of all stroke patients are mimics. For example, some patients present to hospital with stroke symptoms, but are in fact suffering from migraine.
“The SMARTchip has the potential to speed up diagnosis and reduce doubt, by supporting our clinical diagnostic skills and other tests. It is vital to act fast. Any indecision can increase the time it takes to assess the best course of action.
“However, it can even be hard for a stroke physician to decide whether a patient has had a stroke or mimic, especially in young people. If there is ever indecision you treat them as if they have had a stroke, as you don’t want to wait or treat them for mimic, which could potentially ruin someone’s life.
“Although if people suffering from a mimic are treated as though they have had a stroke that creates major capacity issues for hospitals.”
Professor Roffe, stroke medicine lead at University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust, added: “The stress of making these decisions is all worth it when you see patients walk out the next day.”
In 2013, the project received a £471,000 grant from the NIHR Invention for Innovation Programme.
Professor Roffe first met Professor Dale at the CRN Stroke meeting. She said: “Nick attended the meeting to present his research idea and receive feedback from stroke research experts. It seemed to be a worthwhile study and as I’m the lead in West Midlands, I agreed to support Nick with the grant proposal, for which I became a co-applicant. I also set up the clinical protocol for the study.”
The SMARTchip started out life as a SMARTcap, which was a vial with a biosensor inside. This was further developed into the smaller SMARTchip. Professor Roffe said: “It just requires a pinprick of blood to be put on the biosensor, which is then put into a machine to measure the levels of purines - this has been a much more reliable tool for reading the blood sample. As it only requires a small blood sample it reduces the chance of haemolysis, which is the rupturing of red blood cells releasing their contents into surrounding fluid, which can increase the level of purines.”
The support provided by the CRN was important to this study, as Dr Roffe explains: “You can’t run a study like this without the infrastructure and research nurses support the Network provides. This enabled us to deliver the study over three different sites across England.
“The research nurses were key, as they identified appropriate patients and recruited them straight away.”
Norman Phillips, who suffered a stroke in 2003, has been involved with the study from the very beginning and even attended the NIHR funding meeting.
Norman, 68 from Coventry, said: “I’ve helped with several studies over the past few years. With the SMARTchip study I read through the protocols from a public perspective to make sure it made sense and thought about its impact on real people.
“Research documents often contain scientific language, which the public don’t need to see, so I suggest language that people will understand.
“Also from my experience I have questions and thoughts about the study that the researchers may not have thought of.”
Professor Roffe said: “Norman certainly keeps us on our toes and reminds us all why we are here, which gives us a real drive.”
The trial is in the last phase of recruitment, which will end in March 2017. The data will then be analysed and a report produced for the NIHR Invention for Innovation committee.
Professor Roffe added: “The next stage will be undertake further research to see how and where it could be used clinically for stroke. The hope is that they would be rolled out in ambulances to speed up diagnosis. Also to find out what other conditions the biosensor could identify.”
An article was recently published in The Observer about the SMARTchip study.
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust is also the study sponsor.

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