Deans' stroke musings: New brain-wave cap diagnoses stroke in the ambulance, saving lives

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.

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

New brain-wave cap diagnoses stroke in the ambulance, saving lives

Didn't your incompetent hospital implement something like this 6 years ago? NO? So I was right, you do have an incompetent hospital. Are you going to fire the board of directors and install stroke survivors?

Hats off to Helmet of Hope - stroke diagnosis in 30 seconds; February 2017

The latest here:

New brain-wave cap diagnoses stroke in the ambulance, saving lives

A special brain-wave cap can diagnose stroke in the ambulance, allowing the patient to receive appropriate treatment faster. Jonathan Coutinho, neurologist at Amsterdam UMC, is one of the inventors the swimming cap: "Our research shows that the brain-wave cap can recognize patients with large ischemic stroke with great accuracy. This is very good news, because the cap can ultimately save lives by routing these patients directly to the right hospital." The research is published today in Neurology.

Every year, millions of people worldwide suffer an ischemic stroke, the most common type of stroke. An ischemic stroke occurs when a blood clot blocks a blood vessel of the brain, causing a part of the brain to receive no or insufficient blood. Prompt treatment is crucial to prevent permanent disability or death.

Neurologist Jonathan Coutinho, Technical Physician Wouter Potters and professor of Radiology Henk Marquering, all from Amsterdam UMC, invented the brain-wave cap, which allows an EEG (brain wave test) to be carried out in the ambulance. This brain wave test shows whether there is an ischemic stroke and whether the blocked cerebral blood vessel is large or small. This distinction determines the treatment: in case of a small ischemic stroke, the patient receives a blood thinner, and in case of a large ischemic stroke, the blood clot must be removed mechanically in a specialized hospital.

When it comes to stroke, time is literally brain. The sooner we start the right treatment, the better the outcome. If the diagnosis is already clear in the ambulance, the patient can be routed directly to the right hospital, which saves valuable time."

Jonathan Coutinho, Neurologist

Between 2018 and 2022, the smart brain-wave cap was tested in twelve Dutch ambulances, with data collected from almost 400 patients. The study shows that the brain-wave cap can recognize patients with a large ischemic stroke with great accuracy. "This study shows that the brain-wave cap performs well in an ambulance setting. For example, with the measurements of the cap, we can distinguish between a large or small ischemic stroke," adds Coutinho.

In order to develop the brain-wave cap into a product and bring it to the market, TrianecT, an Amsterdam UMC, spin-off company was founded in 2022. In addition, a follow-up study (AI-STROKE) is currently ongoing in which even more measurements are collected in order to develop an algorithm for improved recognition of a large ischemic stroke in the ambulance. The Dutch Heart Foundation has also recognized the importance of this research and has made 4 million euros available for large-scale research into faster treatment of ischemic stroke.

Source:

Amsterdam University Medical Centers

Journal reference:

van Stigt, M. N., et al. (2023) Prehospital Detection of Large Vessel Occlusion Stroke With Electroencephalography: Results of the ELECTRA-STROKE Study. Neurology. doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000207831.