Recent decades have seen several advances in medical care for acute stroke patients, but there has been little systematic documentation of these changes. This study by HIP Investigator Dr. Maureen Smith examined changes in technology use and medical therapies for hospitalized acute stroke during the 1980s using discharge diagnosis lists from Minneapolis-St Paul metropolitan hospitals.
The study identified several trends in acute stroke care, including the trend toward both greater and earlier use of CT and MRI to diagnose stroke, and that the mean length of stay being halved from 20 days in 1980 to 10 days in 1990.
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