Patient preferences for emergency treatment of stroke examined in new study
Wednesday, April 23, 2014 - 12:03
in Health & Medicine
The majority of adults surveyed in new research indicated they would want administration of clot-dissolving medications if incapacitated by a stroke, a finding that supports clinicians' use of this treatment if patient surrogates are not available to provide consent. "When an incapacitated older patient's treatment preferences are unknown and surrogate decision makers are unavailable, there are empirical grounds for presuming individual consent to thrombolysis for stroke," the authors write.