Introduction: The growing cost of stroke care has created the need for outcome-oriented and cost-saving payment models. Identifying imbalances in the current reimbursement model is an essential step toward designing impactful value-based reimbursement strategies. This study describes the variation in reimbursement fees for ischemic stroke management across the USA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCentrally administered insulin stimulates the reward system to reduce appetite in response to food intake in animal studies. In humans, studies have shown conflicting results, with some studies suggesting that intranasal insulin (INI) in relatively high doses may decrease appetite, body fat, and weight in various populations. These hypotheses have not been tested in a large longitudinal placebo-controlled study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Effective recruitment and retention strategies are essential in clinical trials.
Methods: The MemAID trial consisted of 12 visits during 24 weeks of intranasal insulin or placebo treatment and 24 weeks of post-treatment follow-up in older people with and without diabetes. Enhanced retention strategies were implemented mid study to address high drop-out rate.
Dysphagia is a serious stroke complication but lacks effective therapy. We investigated safety and preliminary efficacy of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (atDCS) paired with swallowing exercises in improving post-stroke dysphagia from an acute unilateral hemispheric infarction (UHI). We conducted a double-blind, early phase-2 randomized controlled trial, in subjects (n = 42) with moderate-severe dysphagia [Penetration and Aspiration Scale (PAS) score ≥ 4], from an acute-subacute UHI.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: Racial and ethnic disparities in stroke outcomes exist, but differences by stroke type are less understood. We studied the association of race and ethnicity with stroke mortality, by stroke type, in a national sample of hospitalized patients in the Veterans Health Administration.
Methods: A retrospective observational study was performed including non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and Hispanic patients with a first hospitalization for stroke between 2002 and 2012.
Background: There are limited data on the trajectory of recovery and long-term functional outcomes after intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Most ICH trials have conventionally assessed outcomes at 3 months following the footsteps of ischemic stroke. The i-DEF trial (Intracerebral Hemorrhage Deferoxamine Trial) assessed modified Rankin Scale (mRS) longitudinally at prespecified time points from day 7 through the end of the 6-month follow-up period.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTher Adv Neurol Disord
December 2020
Neurological manifestations are not uncommon during infection with the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). A clear association has been reported between cerebrovascular disease and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, whether this association is causal or incidental is still unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTransthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is routinely performed as part of standard acute ischemic stroke (AIS) workup. However, the overall yield of TTE is unclear and many patients may undergo unnecessary investigations. This study aims to investigate the utility of TTE as part of AIS workup.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: The benefit of mechanical thrombectomy (MT) in patients with stroke presenting with mild deficits (National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale [NIHSS] score <6) owing to emergency large-vessel occlusion (ELVO) remains uncertain.
Objective: To assess the outcomes of patients with mild-deficits ELVO (mELVO) treated with MT vs best medical management (bMM).
Data Sources: We retrospectively pooled patients with mELVO during a 5-year period from 16 centers.
Background: Interhospital transfers for endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) evaluation have increased since the publication of landmark neuroendovascular stroke trials in 2015. The lack of guidelines to select potential EVT candidates prior to transfer can lead to instances where, despite considerable costs and transport risks, transferred patients do not ultimately undergo EVT. Our aim was to characterize the patterns and identify predictors for EVT on transfer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntracranial pressure (ICP) should ideally be measured in many conditions affecting the brain. The invasiveness and associated risks of the measurement modalities in current clinical practice restrict ICP monitoring to a small subset of patients whose diagnosis and treatment could benefit from ICP measurement. To expand validation of a previously proposed model-based approach to continuous, noninvasive, calibration-free, and patient-specific estimation of ICP to patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), we made waveform recordings of cerebral blood flow velocity in several major cerebral arteries during routine, clinically indicated transcranial Doppler examinations for vasospasm, along with time-locked waveform recordings of radial artery blood pressure (APB), and ICP was measured via an intraventricular drain catheter.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Tobacco alcohol amblyopia is an outdated term for a rare condition characterized by visual impairment due to tobacco and alcohol abuse usually associated with nutritional deficiencies. The more accurate term used now is Nutritional Optic Neuropathy. The visual impairment generally presents as a centrocecal scotoma.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Today, laparoscopy tends to become a useful alternative to open procedure for the surgical treatment of spleen disorders, offering at the same time a conservative approach for the management of selected spleen lesions such as posttraumatic cysts.
Case Presentation: This article describes two cases of posttraumatic splenic cysts, one of which was treated with laparoscopic total splenectomy and the second with laparoscopic cystectomy. The procedure was carried out successfully with no complications in both cases, and the patients were discharged a few days after the operation.