Deans' stroke musings: COVID-19 Is an Independent Stroke Risk Factor

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, July 5, 2020

COVID-19 Is an Independent Stroke Risk Factor

This is absolutely appalling. Suggesting monitoring rather than action. Just maybe you want what other ER docs are already doing.

The autopsy findings caused a stir at many hospitals and influenced some doctors to start giving blood thinners to all covid-19 patients. It is now common practice.

Another takeaway is that the findings underscore the importance of getting people on supplementary oxygen quickly to prevent irreversible brain damage.

The latest here:

COVID-19 Is an Independent Stroke Risk Factor

After adjusting for traditional vascular risk factors, radiologists encourage aggressive monitoring of COVID-19 patients for blood flow changes to the brain.

There is a significant link between the virus that causes COVID-19 and strokes, newly published research reveals, indicating providers should adjust their treatment of these patients accordingly.
In the American Journal of Neuroradiology, investigators from Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai published the results of an evaluation of more than 120 patients admitted for possible stroke during the pandemic to six New York City hospitals. Their findings indicate that clinicians should more actively monitor these patients to identify any problems as soon as possible.
“This is the first major peer-reviewed study to show that COVID-19 infection is a risk factor for acute strokes,” said lead study author Puneet Belani, M.D., assistant professor of radiology and neurosurgery. “Patients with COVID-19 should be evaluated early for acute neurological changes and timely workup should be performed in patients suspected to have stroke to reduce morbidity and mortality.”
Belani’s team conducted a retrospective, case-control study with 41 patients. Each patient had a stroke confirmed with non-contrast head CT followed by vascular imaging, and the researchers compared that analysis to 82 control participants who, with the same image confirmation, had no evidence of stroke.
Based on their evaluation, they determined that more than 46 percent of patients with acute ischemic stroke also had COVID-19 infection. The same was true for only 18 percent of the control group. After they adjusted for sex, age, and other risk factors, the association between the virus and stroke was clear.
“We found that COVID-19 is an independent risk factor for imaging-confirmed acute ischemic stroke during stroke alert evaluation, after controlling for traditional vascular risk factors,” the team said. “This finding suggests that COVID-19 infection is associated with increased morbidity and mortality that transcends the primary cardiopulmonary sequelae from the infection.”