Abstract
Background: Stroke has a profound effect on the circulation of the brain. The blood-pressure during stroke affects outcome. Objective: 1. To measure blood-pressure for five days on patients with acute ischaemic stroke and make correlations to outcome. 2. To describe how the recommendations on how to measure and treat blood-pressure at the acute stage of stroke are being followed at the Universital Hospital of Malmö (UMAS). Methods: Study no 1 includes hospitalized patients with acute stroke February through March 2006 at UMAS. Blood pressure levels, NIHS, medical treatment, parenteral fluids and demographic data were retrieved from paper journals and the electronic medical record system Melior. The patients were interviewed for basis of historical Rankin and examined according to the NIHS. Study no 2 includes the same patients. Results: patients with higher mean blood-pressure during five days after acute ischaemic stroke has worse outcome than patients with lower mean blood-pressure. Patients with haemorragic stroke generally have worse outcome than patients with ischaemic stroke. Blood-pressure was measured in 97 to 86 percent of observed opportunities during five days. One of 23 patients didn’t receive treatment to adjust blood-pressure according to the the clinics own recommendations. Conclusions: 1. Our study indicates that there is a correlation between outcome and blood-pressure level for patients with acute stroke. High blood-pressure is correlated with worse outcome than low blood-pressure. 2 Almost our whole study-population received adequate treatment according to UMAS’s guidelines. 3. Investigation of current literature and articles show that there is yet no randomized controlled studies covering blood-pressure interventions in the setting of acute stroke.