Abstract
Background: Availability of 4G cellular network and video cellphone handsets may allow mobile videophone assessment to be employed in prehospital stroke care. The California Brief Stroke Scale (CABSS) is a 4 item scale designed as a mobile videophone test to evaluate a prehospital telemedicine instrument to rate stroke severity. Potential uses include identifying patients who are likely harboring persisting large vessel occlusions and to characterize baseline deficits prior to enrollment in prehospital trials. Methods: One bedside and one remote CABSS score were independently obtained on 15 ischemic stroke patients with persistent neurologic deficits. The bedside examination was performed by a stroke neurologist. The remote examination was performed by a second stroke neurologist through mobile video phone. A CABSS score of 1 or higher (scale 0-7) was an index of global stroke deficit severity. Kappa coefficients were calculated for concordance between bedside and remote scores. Results: The median National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score was 6 (interquartile range IQR 4-10). On average the CABSS score evaluation took 25 seconds to perform. The median video CABSS was 2, (IQR1-3) and median bedside CABSS was 3, (IQR 1-3). Based on weighted K coefficients, cortical findings (aphasia, gaze deviation/hemineglect) displayed excellent agreement κ=1 (95% CI 1.0) and non-cortical findings (facial droop, arm drift) displayed substantial agreement κ =0.7 (95% CI 0.4-1.0). There was substantial agreement between bedside and remote methods for the total CABSS κ 0.68 (95% CI 0.44-0.92). The CABSS scores obtained by bedside and remote methods were strongly correlated (r= 0.85, P<0.0001). Conclusion: Our prospective study found that mobile videocell phone evaluation using CABSS is a feasible and reliable means of examining hyperacute stroke patients in the field. A physician can rapidly perform an audiovideo examination to increase the accuracy of prehospital identification of patients harboring persisting large vessel occlusions and characterize baseline deficits prior to enrollment in prehospital clinical trials to a clinically important degree.
Published Version
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