Introduction: Every so often, a clinical trial comes along that changes the way we think about treatment. In atrial fibrillation, one of those trials was called AVERROES. And it answered a very important question: if a patient with AF can’t take warfarin, is aspirin good enough — or is there something better? The problem before AVERROES "We’ve known for decades that atrial fibrillation increases t [...]
Today’s video is on the subject of stroke and in particular cryptogenic strokes. A stroke is often a devastating occurrence for several reasons: A stroke can be life threatening and stroke is widely recognised as a leading cause of death worldwide A stroke can be disabling and can destroy a person’s quality of life A stroke can recur and cause more damage/death the next time. It is therefore cruc [...]
The first thing I want to say is that unfortunately the practice of modern day medicine is largely servile to clinical guidelines. We decide how to treat a patient based on how someone else (i.e whoever wrote the guideline) tells us how to manage the patient. If we stick to the guideline, we feel that we are offering top quality care and we can defend ourselves in court. If we don't stick to the g [...]
