Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on acute stroke care: facing an epidemiological paradox with a paradigm shift.

ABSTRACT:

Background

During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, a decrease of stroke's hospital admissions and reperfusion therapy has been reported worldwide. This retrospective observational study assessed the volume of stroke cases managed in the Emergency Department (ED) and reperfusion therapies in an Italian stroke network with a high incidence of COVID-19, particularly to evaluate if the in-hospital rerouting and the switch from a drip-and-ship to a mothership model could assure an adequate volume of acute treatments.

Methods

We compared data from March 2020 with those from previous years and formulated five PICO questions regarding (1) incidence of stroke cases in the ED; (2) relation between stroke cases and COVID-19; (3) differences in the number of reperfusion

SUBMITTER: Paolucci M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7680213 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature