The neurologists' patients may have benefited from better diagnosis, treatment, prevention and rehabilitation, the researchers said. One of the study's authors, Dr. David J. Ballard, said the study underscores the importance of giving stroke patients access to more expensive specialists. It raises concerns about health-care plan arrangements that would make it difficult for neurologists to participate in the care of patients with stroke,'' said Ballard, an internist and director of the Center for Clinical Evaluation Sciences at Emory University. The study was published in the November issue of the American Heart Association journal Stroke. It was funded by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, part of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Stroke occurs when a blood vessel to the brain bursts or is blocked by a clot.
Deprived of oxygen, nerve cells in the affected area can't function and die within minutes. About 500,000 Americans suffer stroke each year. The researchers studied 38,612 Medicare patients over 65 treated at hospitals across the United States for strokes caused by blood clots, the most common type. Among patients discharged from a hospital, 16.1 percent of those in neurologists' care died in the 90 days after a stroke. That compares with 25.3 percent of those in family physicians' care.