Stroke Leaders Outline a Future Focused on Prevention, Access, and Recovery

 WHAT A LOAD OF CRAPOLA! NOTHING ON 100% RECOVERY! I hope your comeuppance on your upcoming stroke(when you are the 1 in 4 per WHO that has a stroke) is going to be a real bitch for you! 

If these are supposed to be leaders; THEY ARE COMPLETELY WORTHLESS!

Send me personal hate mail on this: oc1dean@gmail.com. I'll print your complete statement with your name and my response in my blog. Or are you afraid to engage with my stroke-addled mind? No excuses are allowed! You're medically trained; it should be simple to precisely state EXACTLY WHY you aren't working on 100% recovery protocols with NO EXCUSES! Your definition of competence in stroke is obviously much lower than stroke survivors' definition of your competence! Swearing at me is allowed, I'll return the favor. Don't even attempt to use the excuse that brain research is hard.

Stroke Leaders Outline a Future Focused on Prevention, Access, and Recovery

The future of stroke care is likely to be shaped as much by systems, equity, and prevention as by the next breakthrough drug or device, according to speakers and presenters at the International Stroke Conference 2026. Across interviews and sessions, experts described a field that has undergone dramatic transformation over the past decade—but one that now faces the challenge of ensuring those advances reach every patient and extend beyond the first hours of care.

Many pointed to the extraordinary progress in acute intervention. Luke Messac, MD, PhD, an attending emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, reflected on how stroke care has evolved from a time when emergency clinicians had little to offer to one in which patients who once faced devastating outcomes could return to near-normal function within hours. Yet he emphasized that treatment science alone was not enough. Transfer networks, emergency medical systems, and interhospital coordination must be as well-resourced and carefully designed as the therapies themselves. Without strong delivery systems(Without EXACT REHAB PROTOCOLS, your delivery systems are useless! ARE YOU THAT BLITHERINGLY STUPID?), even the most effective interventions risked being underused.

(There is still NOTHING MUCH to offer!)

Stroke is a complete shitshow of failure!

This proves the complete failure:

1. tPA full recovery? Better than 12%?
2. Rehab full recovery? Better than 10%?

Emily R. Fisher, MD, a medical resident and neurology and rehabilitation fellow at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, echoed that concern, noting that equitable access remained paramount. Novel treatments are energizing the field, she said, but their impact would depend on whether patients could receive them promptly and regardless of geography or socioeconomic status. For many presenters, disparities in access represented the next major frontier.

At the same time, researchers highlighted innovation in prevention and secondary risk reduction. Shervin Badihian, MD, a neuroscientist at Cleveland Clinic, underscored the rapid expansion of knowledge around preventing recurrent stroke and the increasing focus on primary prevention to reduce overall incidence. Ashkan Shoamanesh, MD, FRCPC, associate professor in the Division of Neurology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, described factor XI inhibition as a potentially “radical” shift in second-stroke prevention, one that could reshape cardiovascular care more broadly if safety profiles held. He also pointed to a growing emphasis on tissue-based decision-making rather than rigid time windows in hyperacute stroke, supported by emerging data presented at the meeting.

Advances in imaging were another recurring theme. Ava L. Liberman, MD, assistant professor of emergency medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, anticipated that greater use of advanced neuroimaging in the earliest phase of evaluation would significantly influence diagnosis and treatment selection. She also highlighted first-day randomized controlled trials with global implications, suggesting that earlier enrollment and intervention could redefine standards of care.

Beyond acute treatment, several speakers called attention to persistent knowledge gaps. Nada K. El Husseini, MD, associate professor of neurology and director of telestroke services in the Department of Neurology at Duke University, stressed the need to better understand cryptogenic stroke, which can account for up to 30% of cases even after a comprehensive workup, as well as nontraditional and women-specific risk factors. She also described a major unmet need in stroke recovery beyond the initial days of hospitalization, arguing that long-term rehabilitation and survivorship must become central to future innovation.

Technology may play an expanding role in that effort. Alison Holman, PhD, FNP, professor and associate dean for academic personnel at the University of California, Irvine School of Nursing, presented research on a wearable device capable of measuring both the quantity and quality of daily social interactions, offering a way to identify and address social isolation during recovery. Meanwhile, Angelina Rose Wronski, RN, BS, a stroke coordinator at Rochester Regional Health, advocated for adapting the NIH Stroke Scale to better serve nonverbal and American Sign Language–using patients, underscoring how culturally responsive assessment tools could improve diagnostic accuracy.

Mukul Sharma, MD, MSc, professor of neurology at McMaster University, argued that the next phase of progress would require systems change and improved communication—not only among clinicians, but also with patients and families. He described journalists as essential partners in translating complex science into accessible information.

Taken together, the vision emerging from the conference suggested that the most meaningful changes ahead will integrate scientific breakthroughs with equitable delivery, personalized prevention, inclusive assessment, and sustained support for stroke survivors long after the acute event.