The following are a few of the areas highlighted (regarding the exciting new research into the diagnosis and treatment of stroke) in this year’s annual conference of the American Stroke Association that was held the week of February 14, 2001.

Stroke risk high for sleepyheads and snorers

Results of a stroke-screening program indicate that sleeping for more than eight hours a night, snoring and daytime drowsiness was associated with an increased risk for stroke. Even the incidence of TIA or Transient Ischemic Attack is reported to be much higher for those people who sleep eight or more hours a night.

Sleep apnea is a condition in which a person actually stops breathing for periods of time during sleep, which is associated with snoring, and excessive daytime drowsiness.

• People who snore severely or who have trouble staying awake during the day, despite sleeping for eight hours a night would be well advised to see their physician for evaluation for sleep apnea.
• Sleep apnea is often associated with overweight and if diagnosed can be successfully treated with a weight loss program or a C-pap device.

Returning to work after stroke

White-collar, more educated and wealthier people are more likely to return to work, because though there would be cognitive demands on the job, they may be more easily able to make adaptations to make the job easier to perform. Blue-collar workers may have more physically demanding jobs, which may prevent them from returning to work.

Studies found that those who returned to work after stroke felt more secure in their jobs, felt more satisfied and felt they had jobs that gave them more authority to make decisions.

Targeted clot dissolving drugs reduce brain damage from stroke

Brain damage caused by a thrombolitic type stroke appears to have been reduced by an experimental technique used at UCLA Medical Center over the last eight years.

• When a blood clot dislodges from the heart wall or large blood vessel and then travels to a smaller artery in the brain, it can occlude blood flow to that area of the brain and cause damage.
• The technique used at UCLA involved threading a catheter with clot-busing medication such as TPA through a large blood vessel in the groin to the precise area in the brain where the clot had lodged.
• Physicians were able to pinpoint this area with imaging.
• Using this pinpoint delivery of these clot-busting drugs increased the percentage of opening blocked blood vessels from 30-40 percent using standard IV infusion to 67 percent.
• This technique did however increase the likelihood of hemorrhage or bleeding in the in the brain.

Stem cell transplants offer hope of brain repair

Stem cell transplant showed a reversal of the brain damage in rats who have stroke damaged brains, preliminary studies report. The transplanted stem cells survived and developed into neurons and other mature brain tissue. Stem cells are found primarily in bone marrow in adults or in embryonic tissue.

Latest research on rehabilitation after stroke a Stroke attack

Scientists now have begun to develop techniques to reverse this vicious brain signaling cycle. They have begun testing what is called "constraint-induced movement therapy." This forces people to use their damaged limb, particularly a damaged hand, very rigorously. After they receive extensive training, patients wear a restraint on their "good hand" during most waking hours and for intensive rehab that lasts six hours a day for two or three weeks. This forces the brain to focus its energy on the damaged hand and ultimately improves its use.

In an article published in Stroke, researchers at the University of Alabama-Birmingham and in Germany showed that this therapy may not only improve the function of the hand, but actually remodels the brain. Studies done pre-therapy on 13 stroke patients who had suffered strokes an average of four years earlier showed shrunken brain areas or "brain maps" responsible for guiding the damaged hands. Following 12 days of constraint-induced therapy, the maps had expanded and remained intact six months later. As the researchers wrote in the article, "this is the first demonstration in humans of a long-term alteration in brain function associated with a therapy-induced improvement in the rehabilitation of movement after neurological injury."

Related Articles

• Is Stroke Worse than a Heart Attack?
• Heart Patients are at a High Risk of Stroke
• Rehabilitation may begin within two days after the Stroke
• Recent Facts in Treatment and Research of Stroke.