Close X
Sunday, November 24, 2024
ADVT 
National

Research looks at strokes during COVID-19 pandemic

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 28 Mar, 2022 10:41 AM
  • Research looks at strokes during COVID-19 pandemic

CALGARY - The first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Alberta saw fewer stroke patients, but a higher number of stroke-related deaths, according to new research.

The study, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, was conducted by a team of eight doctors and other researchers across the province.

"One of the things that we began to realize within the first few months of the pandemic … is that there seemed to be a decline in the number of people presenting with acute strokes," lead author Dr. Aravind Ganesh, a neurologist at the University of Calgary, said in an interview.

Several countries, he said, had started noticing a trend of fewer people seeking emergency care for a variety of medical issues during the pandemic.

"The question that people started asking was whether the … public health restrictions that we had implemented as a result of the pandemic might be having some unintended consequences of dissuading people from attending at the hospital for emergencies like stroke and heart disease," said Ganesh.

"So, the premise for this study came from this very legitimate worry on our part."

Researchers looked at data for 19,531 Alberta patients from January 2016 to February 2020 and another 4,900 patients during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"In the first wave of the pandemic in Alberta, we had quite a decline in the number of people who were presenting with acute ischemic stroke — that's strokes because of blood clots in the brain," explained Ganesh.

"Along with that, we also found the that the use of stroke therapies … declined by about the same amount."

Researchers also found that the number of patients with stroke symptoms did not return to pre-pandemic levels after the first wave in spring 2020.

"Especially during the second- and third-wave periods of our study, when COVID-19 cases surged, we expected to observe an increase in stroke presentations instead of declines," they write in the study.

Ganesh said he and other researchers were able to look at what happened to those patients by studying how many people died due to strokes.

"We found those out-of-hospital deaths ended up rising four out of the five time periods in the pandemic," he said. "We ended up being able to find some of these missing strokes that way."

Similar results were found in hospitals.

"During the second wave of the pandemic and the third wave of the pandemic, more people ended up dying in hospital who had strokes," he said.

The study looked at population-level data, so it's not clear why people decided not to seek treatment.

"Is it that people were waiting to seek help until their strokes became more severe?" he asked.

Ganesh said researchers don't know for sure, but they believe people were trying to avoid hospitals.

"We suspect it was hospital avoidance because of the out-of-hospital deaths that we found."

He said the results of the research weren't all bad.

"We actually did end up catching up later on in the pandemic," said Ganesh.

He said public health officials and doctors also worked to remind people to go to the hospital for emergencies.

"What we've understood is that we really need to think critically about the kind of public health messaging we do during the pandemic."

MORE National ARTICLES

Urgent action needed on OD deaths: B.C. report

Urgent action needed on OD deaths: B.C. report
 The death review panel report released Wednesday by chief coroner Lisa Lapointe's office sets a deadline of May 9 for the government to create a safer supply policy in collaboration with the BC Centre for Disease Control and the BC Centre on Substance Use.

Urgent action needed on OD deaths: B.C. report

274 COVID19 cases for Wednesday

274 COVID19 cases for Wednesday
There are 405 individuals hospitalized with COVID-19 and 58 are in intensive care. In the past 24 hours, 14 new deaths have been reported, for an overall total of 2,929.

274 COVID19 cases for Wednesday

Charges laid for double murder that claimed the life of a 15 year old male

Charges laid for double murder that claimed the life of a 15 year old male
Wong was a young athlete and a promising student on the night of January 13, 2018, when he was struck by a stray bullet while riding in the back of his parents’ car. He was critically injured and died days later in hospital. Whiteside was also killed in the shooting.

Charges laid for double murder that claimed the life of a 15 year old male

Man caught exposing and touching himself near a Surrey school

Man caught exposing and touching himself near a Surrey school
All incidents occurred in the morning between 8:20 to 8:30 a.m. The suspect is described as South Asian, 30-40 years old, medium complexion, dark hair, 5’10, average build, with facial stubble and a moustache.  

Man caught exposing and touching himself near a Surrey school

Anti-lockdown MPP to run for Tory leadership

Anti-lockdown MPP to run for Tory leadership
Roman Baber will launch his campaign Wednesday evening, and says he considers himself to be the underdog in the party's contest, competing against well-known federal Conservatives like Pierre Poilievre and Leslyn Lewis. Former Quebec premier Jean Charest is also planning to enter the race Thursday.    

Anti-lockdown MPP to run for Tory leadership

Biden's billion-dollar cleanup pledge puts Great Lakes back in environment limelight

Biden's billion-dollar cleanup pledge puts Great Lakes back in environment limelight
More than three decades later, North America's single largest source of freshwater is back in the public spotlight, this time for seemingly all the right reasons — thanks, at least in part, to the political woes of a certain U.S. president.

Biden's billion-dollar cleanup pledge puts Great Lakes back in environment limelight