BACKGROUND PRACTIC is an observational, epidemiological, multi-center, prospective registry of patients admitted to the emergency room with acute stroke. We aim to study the impact of admission to a specialized neurology ward, either a Stroke Unit or by a Stroke Team, on several outcomes. METHODS Ten consecutive acute stroke patients admitted to the emergency room of 88 different hospitals of...

BACKGROUND The extent of stroke-related disability typically becomes most apparent after patient discharge to the community. As part of the Irish National Audit of Stroke Care (INASC), a national survey of community-based allied health professionals and public health nurses was conducted. The aim was to document the challenges to service availability for patients with stroke in the community an...

Translational stroke research is a challenging task that needs long term team work of the stroke research community. Highly reproducible stroke models with excellent outcome consistence are essential for obtaining useful data from preclinical stroke trials as well as for improving inter-lab comparability. However, our review of literature shows that the infarct variation coefficient of commonly...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE To increase the proportion of ischemic stroke patients treated with thrombolytic therapy, the establishment of primary stroke centers in community hospitals has been advocated. We evaluated the use of thrombolytic therapy before and after institution of a primary stroke center in a community hospital. METHODS The availability of an on-call stroke emergency response team...

Aims: International evaluation of Early Stroke Discharge (ESD) has concentrated on measuring the impact of service provision. This research aimed to address the question, „How did the ESD team members and external stakeholders experience the service implementation process?‟ Methodology: Between October 2009 and February 2010, six team members and four external stakeholders were interviewed as p...

BACKGROUND: An integrated clinical pathway (ICP) is a key method for structuring or planning processes of care, enabling the modernization health-care delivery and coordination multiple roles, forming complete, patient-centered multidisciplinary team establishing sequence activities, promoting individual communication, collaboration, networking, transparency, reducing cost care. AIM: As there r...

Acute stroke is one of the main causes of death and chronic disability. Thrombolysis with recombinant tissue plasminogen activator within the first hours after onset of symptoms is an effective therapeutic option for ischemic stroke. However, fewer than 2% to 7% of patients receive this treatment, primarily because most patients reach the hospital too late for the initiation of successful thera...

Introduction. Quick thrombolysis after stroke improved clinical outcomes. The study objective was to shorten door-to-needle time for thrombolysis. Methods. After identifying the sources of in-hospital delays, we developed a protocol with a parallel algorithm and recruited nurse practitioners into the acute stroke team. We applied the new protocol on stroke patients from October 2009 to Septembe...

BACKGROUND There is some evidence to suggest that the standard of acute medical care provided to patients with cerebrovascular disease is a major determinant of the eventual outcome. Consequently, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) of London issues periodic guidelines to assist healthcare providers in the management of patients presenting with stroke. OBJECTIVE An audit of the acute manage...

BACKGROUND Development of longer term stroke rehabilitation services is limited by lack of evidence of effectiveness for specific interventions and service models. We describe the protocol for a multicentre randomised controlled trial which is evaluating an extended stroke rehabilitation service. The extended service commences when routine 'organised stroke care' (stroke unit and early supporte...