Utility of a post-hospitalization stroke prevention program managed by nurses.

Goal: Evidence-based guidelines exist for the prevention and treatment of patients with cerebral ischemia. Despite these guidelines, there are gaps in clinical practice. Our study aimed to determine if a physician-directed, nurse-case-management program could reduce individual patient vascular risk factors.

Patent foramen ovale: innocent or guilty? Evidence from a prospective population-based study.

Objectives: We sought to determine the association between patent foramen ovale (PFO), atrial septal aneurysm (ASA), and stroke prospectively in a unselected population sample.

Background: The disputed relationship between PFO and stroke reflects methodologic weaknesses in studies using invalid controls, unblinded transesophageal echocardiography examinations, and data that are unadjusted for age or comorbidity.

Methods: The use of transesophageal echocardiography to identify PFO was performed by a single echocardiographer using standardized definitions in 585 randomly sampled, Olmsted County (Minnesota) subjects age 45 years or older participating in the Stroke Prevention: Assessment of Risk in a Community (SPARC) study.

Atherosclerosis of the aorta: risk factor, risk marker, or innocent bystander? A prospective population-based transesophageal echocardiography study.

Objectives: The goal of this study was to investigate whether complex aortic atherosclerosis is associated with increased risk of vascular events in a non-selected population.

Background: In selected high-risk patients, aortic atherosclerosis is associated with increased risk of vascular events.

Methods: We describe the relationship between simple versus complex (>4-mm thick or mobile debris) aortic atherosclerotic plaques and vascular events during follow-up in a random sample of 585 persons (age > or =45 years) using 1993 to 2000 data from the Stroke Prevention: Assessment of Risk in a Community (SPARC), a prospective population-based longitudinal study.