Neurosciences

On Saturday, February 25th our guest was Mayo Clinic physician Dr. Ronald Petersen discussing Alzheimer's disease. Medical Edge Weekend 2-25-12 The Mayo Clinic Alzheimer's disease blog can be found ...

PHOENIX — It's been said that marriage is good for your health — especially if you're a man. Research at Mayo Clinic in Arizona shows that's true when it comes to seeking care for stroke symptoms. A Mayo Clinic study, presented at the American Stroke Conference in New Orleans in early February, says that men experiencing a stroke call for emergency help quicker than women, especially if they are married. "Marriage has long been shown to offer health benefits and often more for men," said Joyce Lee-Iannotti, M.D., a neurology Fellow at Mayo Clinic in Arizona and author of the study. "The reasons are unclear, but it's been postulated that it can be societal roles, where women take on the roles of caregivers and advise their spouses to seek care, often putting their own health behind that of their children and husband." VIDEO: Dr. Lee-Iannotti explains the study. The study was a retrospective review of 209 patients with acute stroke symptoms brought by emergency medical services to Mayo Clinic in Phoenix over 15 months ending in November 2011. Researchers collected participants' age, gender, marital status, time of symptom awareness and time of emergency medical services dispatch. They compared the time from symptoms awareness to EMS dispatch between married and single participants and between men and women. Married men called within 28 minutes of symptoms compared to married women, who called an average of 67 minutes after their first stroke symptoms. Single men activated EMS earlier than single women, but the difference was not significant.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A research team led by investigators at Mayo Clinic in Florida has found that a small device worn on a patient's brow can be useful in monitoring stroke patients in the hospital. The device measures blood oxygen, similar to a pulse oximeter, which is clipped onto a finger. VIDEO ALERT: Additional audio and video resources, including comments by Dr. Freeman about the new device, are available online. Their study, published in the Feb. 1 issue of Neurosurgical Focus, suggests this tool, known as frontal near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), could offer hospital physicians a safe and cost-effective way to monitor patients who are being treated for a stroke, in real time. "About one-third of stroke patients in the hospital suffer another stroke, and we have few options for constantly monitoring patients for such recurrences," says the study's senior investigator, neurocritical care specialist William Freeman, M.D., an associate professor of neurology at Mayo Clinic. "This was a small pilot study initiated at Mayo Clinic's campus in Florida, but we plan to study this device more extensively and hope that this bedside tool offers significant benefit to patients by helping physicians detect strokes earlier and manage recovery better," he says.

A research team led by investigators at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL has found that a small device worn on a patient’s brow can be useful in monitoring stroke patients in the hospital.  Researchers say the device might offer a reliable way to monitor hospitalized patients for recurrent strokes in real time.  The device measures blood oxygen, similar to a pulse oximeter, which is clipped onto a finger. Their study, published in the Feb. 1 issue of Neurosurgical Focus, suggests this tool, known as frontal near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), could offer hospital physicians a safe and cost-effective way to monitor patients who are being treated for a stroke, in real time.

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Researchers involved in the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging reported today that more than 6 percent of Americans age 70 to 89 develop mild cognitive impairment (MCI) every year. Also, the condition appears to affect men and those who only have a high school education more than women and those who have completed some higher education. People with MCI are at the stage between suffering the normal forgetfulness associated with aging and developing dementia, such as that caused by Alzheimer's disease. VIDEO ALERT: Additional audio and video resources, including excerpts from an interview with Dr. Roberts describing the research, are available on the Mayo Clinic News Blog. The study, "The Incidence of MCI Differs by Subtype and is Higher in Men," which was published in the Jan. 25, 2012, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, reports that 296 of the 1,450 study participants developed MCI, an incidence rate of 6.4 percent per year overall. Among men, the incidence rate was 7.2 percent, compared with 5.7 percent per year for women. "While incidence rates for MCI have been reported previously, ours is one of the few studies designed specifically to measure the incidence of MCI and its subtypes using published criteria," says lead author Rosebud O. Roberts, M.B., Ch.B., of the Mayo Clinic Division of Epidemiology. "The statistically significant difference between incidence rates among men and women represents an important finding for those evaluating patients for MCI." The study also looked in more detail at patients with MCI, dividing them according to whether they developed amnestic MCI (aMCI) — in which the condition affects the memory domain — or non-amnestic MCI (naMCI).

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