Deans' stroke musings: Association of subclinical carotid atherosclerosis with immediate memory and other cognitive functions

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.

Sunday, August 13, 2017

Association of subclinical carotid atherosclerosis with immediate memory and other cognitive functions

My right carotid artery is completely closed up and I don't think my cognitive functioning has slowed down one bit.

Association of subclinical carotid atherosclerosis with immediate memory and other cognitive functions

Geriatrics and Gerontology International

Matsumoto L, et al.

This study was meant to clarify if carotid atherosclerosis and its risk factors are associated with cognitive decline. Findings demonstrated that subclinical carotid atherosclerosis, defined as thickened intima-media thickness (IMT), could be a marker for early stages of cognitive impairment (CI), especially for immediate memory recall and the impairment was supposedly attributed to cerebral microvascular dysfunction in the frontal lobe.

Methods

Researchers assessed 206 individuals who visited their center for health screening.
They performed physical examinations, blood tests, intima–media thickness (IMT) measurement by carotid ultrasonography, brain magnetic resonance imaging scanning and cognitive function assessments.
A total of 30 individuals, who had significant cerebrovascular lesions detected in magnetic resonance imaging scans, were excluded.(Cherry picking here, excluding the worst cases, like me)
To detect early cognitive decline, researchers defined “cognitive impairment (CI)” when a patient satisfied at least one of three criteria.
These were Mini–Mental State Examination score <24, clock–drawing test score <4 coexisting with forgetfulness and Wechsler Memory Scale–revised delayed recall score below the normal range for the duration of education (>16 years of education: ≥9, 10–15 years: ≥5, 0–9 years: ≥3).

Results

Findings reported that among 176 individuals, 27 were placed in the CI group.
Researchers observed that IMT was significantly higher in the CI group as compared with the non–CI group (mean ± SD: 2.0 ± 1.0 vs 1.7 ± 0.7, P = 0018 by Student's t–test).
They also noted that other atherosclerotic risk factors, such as blood pressure, low–density lipoprotein cholesterol, and hemoglobin A1c, were not significantly different between the two groups.
In multivariate analysis, it was highlighted that maximum IMT was associated with impaired immediate recall score on Wechsler Memory Scale–revised, independent of the presence of deep white matter hyperintensities on the magnetic resonance imaging scan.