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| Home / Departments / Stroke Unit |
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| Stroke Unit at AMRI |
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| Introduction |
| Earlier, stroke patients were being treated in general medical wards manned by people non-specialist staff along with other patients. It has been seen that specialised patient care units like coronary care units, burn units, and trauma units could provide better patient care. The need of stroke unit was felt long ago and organised stroke unit care started in Europe and North America almost 40 years back. Stroke units have long been known to be effective in reducing morbidity and mortality, increasing the proportion of patients returning home, reducing length of stay, improving quality of life for stroke survivors and probably reducing overall costs of stroke care. A stroke unit provides multidisciplinary specialized care for patients who have had an acute stroke. It consists of nurses, pharmacists, social workers, medical staff, and occupational, physical and speech therapists. Cochrane systematic review has concluded that stroke patients who receive organised inpatient care in a stroke unit are more likely to be alive, independent, and living at home one year after the stroke. The benefits were most apparent in units based in a discrete ward. No systematic increase was observed in the length of inpatient stay. Studies have found that benefit lasts even up to 5-10 years in follow up. Therefore, an organised stroke unit was long overdue in this part of the country and AMRI Hospital has introduced its stroke unit from 1st July,2009. |
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| How the stroke unit will function? |
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The stroke unit will consist of Neurologists and a group of trained resident doctors capable of handing acute stroke, physiatrist coordinating the rehab services, speech and language pathologist, physical therapist (with masters in neuro rehab), trained nurses, social workers. The unit will be backed by a dedicated critical care team who will provide necessary care to patients who may need intensive care treatment at Neuro ITU. An active neurosurgical team is also there to provide their expertise if a patient needs surgery at any point of time.
There will be a facility of treating acute stroke patients with thrombolytic therapy who reach hospital within 6 hours of their stroke onset. A dedicated team of Neurologist and interventional Neuroradiologist will be available for fast track assessment of stroke patient with institution of “clot busting” treatment to eligible patients. The hospital has CT scanner, MRI scanner and a bi-plane cath lab available where diagnostics and interventional stroke management is possible. |
Every step of the stroke management in the unit will be guided by standard protocols of stroke management which have been drafted with best available evidences and in accordance with the guidelines adopted in the western world. Every stroke patient will be getting a uniform treatment which is important to provide a quality care. |
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| Services available at AMRI stroke unit |
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Fast track assessment of acute stroke patients |
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Urgent CT scan or MRI of stroke patients helping early diagnosis |
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Thrombolytic therapy for eligible patients with ischemic stroke using recombinant tissue plasminogen activator ( a clot busting drug) |
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Dedicated team of trained doctors covering 24X7 |
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Trained stroke nurses taking care of patients |
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Interventional stroke management by experienced Neuroradiologist |
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Necessary neurosurgical back up available when needed |
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Stroke rehabilitation with experienced physiatrist, speech-language pathologist, physiotherapists |
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Modern evidence-based management of stroke following standard published and accepted guidelines. |
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