Minor stroke needs quick medical attention, too

Agencies
July 4, 2018

Jul 4: Minor strokes and “mini-strokes,” or transient ischemic attacks (TIAs), need early medical attention, just like major strokes, but a public education campaign in the UK had little success convincing the public to act fast after these events.

“Although the campaign worked well for behavior after more major stroke, patients were still slow to act on, or ignored completely, the symptoms of minor events,” said Dr. Peter M. Rothwell from John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford.

“It was almost as though the messages from the campaign about major stroke had falsely reassured them that the more minor event that they had experienced was probably nothing to worry about,” said Rothwell, senior author of a study on the campaign´s impact.

“If you have a minor ‘warning’ event, the risk of a more major stroke over the next week is about 10 percent if you are not treated,” he said in an email. “However, that risk is reduced by 80 percent if simple medical treatments are started urgently.”

If you have sudden, temporary neurological symptoms that you haven’t had before, he advises, “Don’t delay. . . get checked.”

Also, he said, “The most important immediate thing that you can do yourself if you have a ‘TIA’ is to take an aspirin (same as is advised after a suspected heart attack). Take an aspirin and seek medical attention.”

Rothwell’s team looked at the impact of the Face, Arm, Speech, Time (FAST) public education campaign on the likelihood that patients would seek medical attention within three hours of their symptoms.

The campaign warned, “When stroke strikes, act FAST. Face: has it fallen on one side? Arms: can they raise them? Speech: is it slurred? Time: if you notice any of these signs, it’s time to call (for an ambulance).”

Facial weakness, arm symptoms and speech disturbance were less common among people with minor stroke or TIA than among those with major stroke, and only about 35 percent of patients with TIAs who didn’t seek medical attention had any of these signs.

Before the campaign, about 68 percent of people with major stroke obtained medical attention within three hours; after the FAST campaign this increased to 81 percent, according to the report in JAMA Neurology.

In contrast, only about 40 percent of patients with TIA and minor stroke obtained medical attention within three hours both before and after the FAST campaign.

Surprisingly, fewer patients correctly attributed their symptoms to TIA or minor stroke after the FAST campaign (28 percent) than before it (37 percent), and 5 percent of patients did not even report their symptoms until the next routine appointment with their doctor.

“Campaigns rightly stress the need to seek emergency medical attention if you have signs of a major stroke,” Rothwell said. “The symptoms of TIA and minor stroke are very similar - but just less severe and more transient (often lasting only minutes). Current campaigns would really only need to add that message at the end of the TV advertisement or poster – ‘and don’t ignore symptoms that might be a small ‘warning stroke’ either - that is an emergency, too.’”

“For any of the stroke symptoms, major, minor, or transitory, time remains of the essence,” said Dr. Victor Loh from National University Health System, Singapore, who recently detailed the outpatient management of TIA, but was not involved in the study.

“Perhaps after the primary message of needing to head to hospital within the time window for patients with major stroke, the secondary message needs to be emphasized: that even if symptoms are mild or transitory, early review and intervention can drastically reduce the risk of a major stroke,” he said by email.

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News Network
February 21,2020

Washington, Feb 21: The fat around arteries may play an important role in keeping the blood vessels healthy, according to a study in rats that may affect how researchers test for treatments related to plaque buildup, as seen in conditions leading to heart attack.

The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, noted that the fat, known as perivascular adipose tissue, or PVAT, helps arteries let go of muscular tension while under constant strain.

According to the researchers, including Stephanie W. Watts from the Michigan State University in the US, this feature is similar to how the bladder expands to accommodate more liquid, while at the same time keeping it from spilling out.

"In our study, PVAT reduced the tension that blood vessels experience when stretched," Watts said.

"And that's a good thing, because the vessel then expends less energy. It's not under as much stress," she added.

According to Watts and her team, PVAT has largely been ignored by researchers believing its main job was to store lipids and do little more.

Until now, she said, scientists only divided blood vessels into three parts, the innermost layer called the tunica intima, the middle layer called the tunica media, and the outermost layer called the tunica adventitia.

Watts believes PVAT is the fourth layer, which others have called tunica adiposa.

Tunica, she said, meant a membranous sheath enveloping or lining an organ, and adiposa is a synonym for fat.

"For years, we ignored this layer -- in the lab it was thrown out. In the clinic it wasn't imaged. But now we're discovering it may be integral to our blood vessels," Watts said.

"Our finding redefines what the functional blood vessels are, and is part of what can be dysfunctional in diseases that afflict us, including hypertension. We need to pay attention to this layer of a blood vessel because it does far more than we originally thought," she added.

Earlier studies, Watts said, had shown that PVAT plays a role in the functioning of blood vessels, finding that it secretes substances that can cause blood vessels to relax as well as substances that can cause it to contract.

In the current study, the researchers decided to test whether PVAT provides a structural benefit to arteries by assisting the function of stress relaxation.

They tested the thoracic aorta in rats, and found those with intact PVAT had more stress relaxation than those without.

The study revealed that the pieces of artery with surrounding fat had measurably relaxed more than those without.

Watts and her colleagues then tested other arteries, and were able to duplicate the same response.

"It's not something you see only in this particular vessel or this particular species or this particular strain. But that maybe it's a general phenomenon," she said.

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Agencies
July 8,2020

Scientists have designed a “catch and kill” air filter which they say can trap the novel coronavirus and neutralise it instantly, an invention that may reduce the spread of COVID-19 in closed spaces such as schools, hospitals and health care facilities, as well as public transit environments like airplanes.

According to the study, published in the journal Materials Today Physics, the device killed 99.8 per cent of the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, in a single pass through its filter. It said the device, made from commercially available nickel foam heated to 200 degrees Celsius, also killed 99.9 per cent of the spores of the deadly bacterium Bacillus anthracis which causes the anthrax disease.

“This filter could be useful in airports and in airplanes, in office buildings, schools, and cruise ships to stop the spread of COVID-19,” said Zhifeng Ren, a co-author of the study from the University of Houston (UH) in the US.

“Its ability to help control the spread of the virus could be very useful for society,” Ren added.

The researchers said they are also developing a desk-top model for the device which is capable of purifying the air in an office worker’s immediate surroundings. According to the scientists, since the virus can remain in the air for about three hours, a filter that could remove it quickly was a viable plan, and with businesses reopening across the world, they believe controlling the spread in air conditioned spaces was urgent.

The study noted that the novel coronavirus cannot survive temperatures above 70 degrees Celsius, so by making the filter temperature far hotter — about 200 degree Celsius, the researchers said they were able to kill the virus almost instantly.

Ren said the nickel foam met several key requirements. “It is porous, allowing the flow of air, and electrically conductive, which allowed it to be heated. It is also flexible,” the researchers noted in a statement.But they added that nickel foam also had low resistivity, making it difficult to raise the temperature high enough to quickly kill the virus.

The researchers said they solved this problem by folding the foam, connecting multiple compartments with electrical wires to increase the resistance high enough to raise the temperature as high as 250 degrees Celsius. By making the filter electrically heated, rather than heating it from an external source, they said the the amount of heat that escaped from the filter is minimised, allowing air conditioning to function with very low strain.

When the scientists built and tested a prototype for the relationship between voltage/current and temperature, they said it satisfies the requirements for conventional heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, and could kill the coronavirus.

“This novel biodefense indoor air protection technology offers the first-in-line prevention against environmentally mediated transmission of airborne SARS-CoV-2, and will be on the forefront of technologies available to combat the current pandemic and any future airborne biothreats in indoor environments,” said Faisal Cheema, another co-author of the study from UH.

The researchers have called for a phased roll-out of the device, “beginning with high-priority venues, where essential workers are at elevated risk of exposure.” They believe the novel device will both improve safety for frontline workers in essential industries and allow nonessential workers to return to public work spaces.

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Agencies
February 10,2020

Washington D.C, Feb 10: Children's vulnerability towards depression, anxiety, impulsive behaviour, and poor cognitive performance could be determined by considering the hours of sleep they manage to get.

Sleep states are active processes that support the reorganisation of brain circuitry. This makes sleep especially important for children, whose brains are developing and reorganising rapidly.

In a study by researchers from the University of Warwick -- recently published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry -- cases of 11,000 children aged between 9 and 11 years from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development dataset were analyzed to find out the relationship between sleep duration and brain structure.

The study was carried out by researchers Professor Jianfeng Feng, Professor Edmund Rolls, Dr. Wei Cheng and colleagues from the University of Warwick's Department of Computer Science and Fudan University.

Measures of depression, anxiety, impulsive behaviour and poor cognitive performance in the children were associated with shorter sleep duration. Moreover, the depressive problems were associated with short sleep duration one year later.

The reduced brain volume of areas such as orbitofrontal cortex, prefrontal, and temporal cortex, precuneus, and supramarginal gyrus was found to be associated with the shorter sleep duration.

Professor Jianfeng Feng, from the University of Warwick's Department of Computer Science, comments: "The recommended amount of sleep for children 6 to 12 years of age is 9-12 hours. However, sleep disturbances are common among children and adolescents around the world due to the increasing demand on their time from school, increased screen time use, and sports and social activities."

A previous study showed that about 60 per cent of adolescents in the United States receive less than eight hours of sleep on school nights.

Professor Jianfeng Feng further added: "Our findings showed that the total score for behavior problems in children with less than 7 hours sleep was 53 per cent higher on average and the cognitive total score was 7.8 per cent lower on average than for children with 9-11 hours of sleep. It highlights the importance of enough sleep in both cognition and mental health in children."

Professor Edmund Rolls from the University of Warwick's Department of Computer Science also commented: "These are important associations that have been identified between sleep duration in children, brain structure, and cognitive and mental health measures, but further research is needed to discover the underlying reasons for these relationships."

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