NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 3, 2022 — Time to arrival at the hospital after recurrent stroke appears to vary according to stroke history, age, race and marital status, according to preliminary research to be presented at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2022, a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science of stroke and brain health to be held in person in New Orleans and virtually Feb. 8-11, 2022.

The faster patients receive stroke treatment, the better the odds of recovery because, on average, 1.9 million brain cells die every minute that a stroke goes untreated, according to the American Stroke Association, a division of the American Heart Association. Patients who used Emergency Medical Services (EMS) arrived at the hospital sooner and received quicker evaluations and stroke treatment. The causes for delayed hospital arrivals were not specifically examined in this study, however, they may include limited awareness of stroke signs and symptoms, the urgency of immediate care and the need to call 911, as well as social determinants of health and structural racism.

Researchers analyzed first-time and recurrent stroke cases from the Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi (BASIC) project between January 1, 2000 to January 1, 2020. Patients were categorized by first-ever strokes (more than 5,600 adults); recurrent stroke within one year of the first event (nearly 260 patients); and recurrent stroke, happening more than one year after the first one (more than 2,000 individuals).
Researchers examined hospital arrival within three hours of the start of stroke symptoms and whether patients arrived at the hospital by EMS. Individual electronic health records were reviewed closely to find key factors that may have played the strongest role in how quickly stroke patients arrived at the hospital.

“We then determined if there was a difference in hospital arrival within three hours and EMS usage among the people in the first and recurrent stroke groups, after considering variables such as stroke severity, marital status, race/ethnicity and gender,” said lead study author Braydon Dymm, M.D., a fourth-year neurology resident at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Researchers found:

Among people experiencing stroke, they were more likely to arrive at the hospital earlier if the stroke was more severe, if the person having the stroke was married or living with a partner, or if EMS provided transportation to the hospital.

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