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October 2017

Longitudinal Care for Young Adults With Stroke

Author Affiliations
  • 1Division of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases, Department of Neurology, Tufts Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts
JAMA Neurol. 2017;74(10):1163-1164. doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2017.1874

Traditional care models for stroke have difficulty addressing the needs of young adults. Postacute care focuses on completing etiologic investigations and optimizing secondary stroke prevention, but these efforts may be incomplete without guidance from a vascular neurologist. Neurologists may address rehabilitation, but some may rely on physiatrists to direct this care without interdisciplinary coordination or consistent neurologist input to predict recovery and guide therapies. Neurologists may address early complications (ie, dysphagia), but they have limited guidelines to support systematically assessing late complications that occur weeks, months, or years later and occur more frequently in young adults. Neurologists may not currently be well-equipped to address pragmatic concerns such as return to work strategies, family planning, caregiver role reversals, and social isolation.

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