Cerebrovascular Complication and Valve Surgery in Infective Endocarditis.

Infective endocarditis (IE) with neurologic complications is common in patients with active IE. The most common and feared neurological complication of left-sided IE is cerebrovascular, from septic emboli causing ischemic stroke, intracranial hemorrhage (ICH), or an infectious intracranial aneurysm with or without rupture. In patients with cerebrovascular complications, valve replacement surgery is often delayed for concern of further neurological worsening.

Infectious causes of stroke.

Purpose Of Review: Stroke continues to be a leading cause of debility in the world. Infections have been associated with stroke, but are not considered as directly causal, and so they are not often included in the traditional stroke workup and management. They are especially important in patients with stroke of undetermined etiology, and in certain patient populations, such as young patients without traditional risk factors, and immunocompromised patients.

Nurses Are as Specific and Are Earlier in Calling In-Hospital Stroke Alerts Compared to Physicians.

Introduction: In-hospital stroke alerts are typically activated by nurses or physicians when a patient's neurological status acutely changes from baseline. It is unclear if knowledge of stroke symptoms translates to accurate activation of the acute stroke team. We hypothesized that nurses who activate the stroke alert system would correctly identify as great a proportion of acute strokes as physicians.