Medical Health

Russell McPhee, 49, was confined to a wheelchair after suffering a severe stroke 23 years ago that left him so disabled that doctors initially told him he would never leave hospital.
But after being injected with botox, the anti-ageing treatment popular among Hollywood celebrities, McPhee can walk around his home unaided and travel [...]

In a 7-5 vote, the FDA panel of outside experts said the device, called the Watchman, should be approved despite some lingering concerns over some of the data as well as possible complications.
The privately held device maker is seeking U.S. approval to market its coin-sized, cage-like device as a competitor to the [...]

About 20 percent of whites and 10 percent of blacks in the United States and Europe have at least one copy of the genetic variant. Each variant increases the risk of this type of stroke by 30 percent, according to the authors of a study being published online Wednesday and in the [...]

The study is the first to identify common genetic variants influencing stroke risk in the United States and may lead to better treatments, they reported on Wednesday.
While other stroke-related genes have been discovered, none involved such a wide portion of the population, said Eric Boerwinkle of The University of Texas Health Science [...]

The hugely successful class of drugs — a mainstay for millions of people with heart disease — also slow the movement of blockages in the carotid artery carrying blood to the brain, French researchers reported in the journal Lancet Neurology.
The meta-analysis concluded that stroke risk fell by 21 percent for each one [...]

People with sickle cell disease, an incurable disorder of the red blood cells, run an increased risk of stroke. About 10 percent of children with the disease have a stroke before turning 21.
Since 1998, six times as many children with sickle cell disease now receive transcranial Doppler ultrasound (TCD) [...]

In an article published in the Hong Kong Medical Journal, researchers wrote such strokes, which are called aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage, peaked in January. “It is the most fatal type of brain hemorrhage, with a mortality of 50 percent,” said George Wong, associate professor at the Prince of Wales Hospital’s neurosurgery division. Those [...]

“Women who reached menopause before age 42 had a doubling in the risk of ischemic stroke, compared to all other women,” said Dr. Linda Lisabeth, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and an author of the study. The findings were to be presented [...]

The trial was the first major clinical study of “transcranial” laser therapy for stroke. In the trial, the researchers at the University of California, San Diego used the NeuroThera laser system within 24 hours of stroke onset, with the average time to treatment being 14.6 hours. The system uses [...]

A variety of other advances promise to improve stroke treatment or prevention as well, a panel of researchers said. Among the developments, presented Thursday at the International Stroke Conference in San Diego:

Using new delivery systems to make a medication more effective in breaking up clots in the brain;
Finding new genetic [...]