Diagnosing a stroke in the emergency room can be difficult. Patients who have atypical symptoms such as dizziness may be especially likely to go undiagnosed. That’s particularly true when the health care provider assessing the problem is not experienced in neurology. The patient may be subjected to a number of expensive tests such as MRI, or worse, a stroke in progress may be missed until it is too advanced for effective treatment.
A group of neurologists has just developed a device to help nonspecialists distinguish between vertigo due to a stroke and that caused by inner ear problems or other benign reasons. The device resembles a pair of goggles, with a computer connection that allows sophisticated analysis of the patient’s eye movements when the head is turned.
Dr. David Newman-Toker, who helped develop the diagnostic device, hopes that it will prevent misdiagnosis of as many as 100,000 strokes a year. This would allow doctors to treat strokes more promptly so that patients would have less risk of lasting brain damage. We interviewed Dr. Newman-Toker a few years ago about this diagnostic technique, but at that time doctors needed to be trained to observe the patient’s response. The new technology makes it much easier for doctors to make the correct call even without special training.
To see what it looks like, here is a link to a CBS interview with Dr. Newman-Toker.
The photo on this website is courtesy of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
[Stroke, online March 5, 2013]
The People's Perspective on Medicine