Gender Gap Persists in Post-Stroke Recovery

 Leaders would solve this problem, but with NO LEADERSHIP ANYWHERE IN STROKE; Nothing ever gets done.

Gender Gap Persists in Post-Stroke Recovery

Women experienced worse functional outcomes up to 12 months after a first ischemic stroke compared to men, despite their improvements in activities of daily living (ADLs) from 3 to 6 months, a new study showed. Although both sexes showed improvement in neurologic outcomes, only men had cognitive gains within a year following the stroke.

METHODOLOGY: 

• Researchers analyzed data from the Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi Project for more than 1000 patients in Texas with first-ever ischemic stroke (mean age, 66 years; 52% men; 58% Mexican American; 34% non-Hispanic White American) between 2014 and 2019.
• Participants completed structured interviews at baseline after the onset of stroke (median time post-stroke, 7 days) and follow-up assessments at 3, 6, and 12 months, which were conducted in English or Spanish.
• Researchers analyzed functional difficulties with ADL/instrumental activities of daily living (IADL), neurologic outcomes with the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS), and cognition with a modified Mini-Mental State Examination (3MSE).

TAKEAWAY:

• Women had worse functional status compared to men, as shown with higher adjusted mean ADL/ IADL scores at 3, 6, and 12 months (mean difference [MD] for all time points, 0.1).These sex differences were observed among patients with less severe stroke at baseline (initial NIHSS score of 5 or less) but not among those with moderate or severe strokes.
• Women had small but significant overall functional improvement from 3 to 12 months (adjusted MD in ADL/ IADL scores, -0.08), whereas scores for men did not change significantly.
• Neurologic outcomes improved in both sexes from 3 to 12 months, with women having a greater decrease in NIHSS scores compared to men (adjusted MDs, -0.8 vs -0.2, respectively). Only men showed cognitive improvement (adjusted MD in 3MSE scores, 0.97).

IN PRACTICE:

"Since many people live with physical, cognitive and emotional challenges after stroke, it is important to find ways to improve recovery(Your tyranny of low expectations is showing! SURVIVORS WANT 100% RECOVERY! Why aren't you delivering that?

Laziness? Incompetence? Or just don't care? NO leadership? NO strategy? Not my job? Not my Problem!

). Our study provides a better understanding of sex differences during stroke recovery," lead author Chen Chen, PhD, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, said in a press release.

SOURCE:

The study was published online December 17 in Neurology.