Factors Influencing Early Neurological Recovery in Patients with Acute Ischemic Stroke

Abstract

The purposes of this cross-sectional descriptive study were to describe early neurological recovery in patients with acute ischemic stroke and to identify the statistical predictors of early neurological recovery at 24 h and 3 days after admission. A purposive random sampling was employed to recruit 220 AIS patients from 8 hospitals in the southern region of Thailand from January to May 2016, and the data was analyzed by using multivariate logistic regression analysis. The results revealed that moderate and severe stroke severity decreased neurological recovery at 24 h (OR = .095, p < .001, and OR = .126, p < .01, respectively), compared with mild stroke severity. In addition, onset time to rt-PA within 3 h and 3.0 - 4.5 h increased the neurological recovery at 24 h (OR = 22.22, P < .001, and OR = 17.28, P < .01, respectively), compared with those who did not receive rt-PA treatment. Lastly, age > 80 years decreased neurological recovery at 24 h after admission (OR=.361, P < .05). Neurological recovery at 3 days showed that moderate and severe stroke severity decreased neurological recovery (OR = .10, p < .001, and OR = .09, p < .001, respectively), compared with mild stroke severity. Stroke patients who had onset time to rt-PA within 3 h and within 3.0 - 4.5 h increased neurological recovery at 3 days (OR=16.95, P < .05, and OR = 14.43, P < .01, respectively), compared with those who did not receive rt-PA treatment. The findings of this study show that stroke severity and onset time to rt-PA influence early neurological recovery in AIS patients.