Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Stroke unit care decreased mortality and increased the number of patients who were living at home 10 years after stroke

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text

QUESTION: For patients in hospital with acute stroke, does care in a stroke unit (SU) decrease long term mortality and increase independence and the proportion of patients who are living at home when compared with general ward (GW) care?

Design

Randomised (allocation concealed), blinded (outcome assessor), controlled trial with 10 years of follow up.

Setting

A university hospital in Norway.

Patients

220 patients (mean age 73 y, 51% men) in hospital with acute stroke. Exclusion criteria were deep coma on admission or living in a nursing home before onset of symptoms. Follow up was 100%.

Intervention

110 patients were allocated to care in a 6 bed SU. The programme was standardised with up to 42 days (mean 16 d) of team based care that included diagnostic evaluation, acute treatment, and mobilisation …

View Full Text

Footnotes

  • Sources of funding: Norwegian Council on Cardiovascular Diseases; The Fund of Cardiovascular Research.

  • For correspondence:Dr B Indredavik, The Stroke Unit, Department of Medicine, University Hospital of Trondheim, N–7006 Trondheim, Norway. Fax +47 73 86 7546.