A two-day national conference on ‘Comprehensive nursing management in stroke: one step ahead,’ began here on Saturday.
The conference, organised by the Nursing Division and the Comprehensive Stroke Care Programme, Dept of Neurology of Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, in collaboration with the Kerala Association of Neurologists, is aimed at training and empowering the nursing fraternity for better in-hospital care, management and rehabilitation of stroke patients.
The national president of Indian Medical Association, A. Marthanda Pillai inaugurated the conference on Saturday
“Nurses play a pivotal role in the management of stroke patients. There is an urgent need to equip the bed-side nurses, especially those working in primary level and secondary level hospitals, to detect the symptoms of stroke, including unusual presentations at the earliest and to activate emergency medical care. We also need to adopt a multidisciplinary team approach for the optimal recovery of patients and a care-giver- based rehabilitation programme,” P. N. Sylaja, who heads the Comprehensive Stroke Care Programme, SCTIMST, said.
Stroke is the third leading cause of death world-wide and is the leading cause of adult disability.
According to the data of the population-based Trivandrum Stroke Registry, the annual incidence of stroke in Thiruvananthapuram is 135 per one-lakh population.
Primary objective of stroke management is to reduce brain injury and to promote maximum patient recovery. Rapid detection, and emergency medical care are essential for optimizing health outcome. Good rehabilitation can bring back a good number of stroke survivors to a productive life again.
Over 300 nurses from leading hospitals across the country, including several from the State Health Service, are participating in the training programme, which is being led by senior Neurology faculty from various hospitals .
