Deans' stroke musings: Neurologic Complications of Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation

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, November 14, 2017

Neurologic Complications of Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation

Be careful out there if your doctor is planning this for you.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26320848

Nasr DM¹, Rabinstein AA².

Author information

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:

The rate and outcomes of neurologic complications of patients receiving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) are poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to identify these parameters in ECMO patients.

METHODS:

All patients receiving ECMO were selected from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample between 2001-2011. The rate and outcomes of neurologic complications [acute ischemic stroke, intracranial hemorrhage (ICH), and seizures] among these patients was determined. Discharge status, mortality, length of stay, and hospitalization costs were compared between patients with and without neurologic complications using chi-squared tests for categorical variables and Student's t-test for continuous variables.

RESULTS:

In total, 23,951 patients were included in this study, of which 2,604 (10.9%) suffered neurologic complications of seizure (4.1%), stroke (4.1%), or ICH (3.6%). When compared to patients without neurologic complications, acute ischemic stroke patients had significantly higher rates of discharge to a long-term facility (12.2% vs. 6.8%, p<0.0001) and a significantly longer mean length of stay (41.6 days vs. 31.9 days, p<0.0001). ICH patients had significantly higher rates of discharge to a long-term facility (9.5% vs. 6.8%, p=0.007), significantly higher mortality rates (59.7% vs. 50.0%, p<0.0001), and a significantly longer mean length of stay (41.8 days vs. 31.9 days) compared to patients without neurologic complications. These outcomes did not differ significantly between seizure patients and patients without neurologic complications.

CONCLUSIONS:

Given the increasing utilization of ECMO and the high costs and poor outcomes associated with neurologic complications, more research is needed to help determine the best way to prevent these sequelae in this patient population.