Factors Affecting the Latency from the Onset of Stroke to the Beginning of Treatment

Abstract

Scientific background: Thrombolytic therapy is a kind of therapy which is decreasing morbidity and mortality for the stroke patients who are admitting to the hospital at the first three hours. For the patients with stroke, arrival time to the hospital and factors affecting this time is very important. This study is planned to investigate the latency to reach the Emergecy Service and to hospitalization after stroke occurance; and to detect the factor affecting this latency outside and inside the hospital. Materials and methods: For seventy one patients admitted to the emergency department between January2000-January2002, demographic data, neurological examination, Glasgow cama scale, score of NIHS, arrival time to the hospital, time of computed tomographic scan, time of hospitalization were determined. Results: The patients arrived to emergency service after an average of 22.4 (0.25-336) hours. The percentage of patients who arrived at the hospital within the first three hours after stroke was 49.2%. The patients with loss of consciousness, lacunar infarct and paresis arrived at the hospital earlier than the other patients. Arrival time to the hospital was not effected by using ambulance. Conclusion: Although the patients who were not with major neurologic deficits arrived at the hospital late, many of the stroke patients had arrived to the hospital at the first three hours and they got the chance of thrombolytic therapy. Using ambulance to get to the hospital was nota factor affecting the latency of arrival to hospital.