FRIDAY, March 30 (HealthDay News) -- When paramedics say a
patient's symptoms indicate a stroke, they are usually right, a new
study suggests.
Researchers at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago
examined the records of 5,300 patients brought to the center's
emergency department by emergency medical services.
The analysis revealed that paramedics identified stroke patients
with a 99.3 percent specificity. A high specificity rate indicates
there's a high probability the patient actually has the diagnosed
condition.
"If a paramedic thinks a patient is having a stroke, that should be a reliable indicator that the hospital's stroke team should be activated," study co-author Dr. Michael Schneck, a professor in the departments of neurology and neurological surgery of Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and medical director of the Neurosciences Intensive Care Unit, said in a Loyola news release.
However, the paramedics' sensitivity rate in identifying strokes
was only 51 percent. This means that when paramedics suspected a
patient was having a stroke, they were probably right, but they
also missed many cases of stroke.
Of the 96 actual strokes, paramedics correctly identified 49 but
missed 47. They were most likely to miss strokes in patients
younger than 45, the findings showed.
Improvement in this area would help reduce the length of time it
takes before stroke patients begin to receive treatment, the
researchers said. Stroke, usually caused by a blood clot in the
brain, is one of the many conditions in which paramedics are
trained to begin treatment before the patient arrives at the
hospital, they noted.
The study will be presented at the American Academy of
Neurology's annual meeting, April 21 to 28 in New Orleans.
The data and conclusions of research presented at medical
meetings are typically considered preliminary until published in a
peer-reviewed medical journal.
More information
The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
outlines
stroke risk factors and symptoms.