Organizational Update: Asia Pacific Stroke Organization.

Abstract

The burden of stroke on individuals, families, healthcare systems, and societies in Asia is enormous and increasing in relation to rapid sociodemographic and lifestyle changes in a large and diverse range of populations. However, challenges also present opportunities for experts from within and outside Asia to facilitate improvements in population health through advocacy, engagement, training, and the conduct and promotion of evidence-based strategies. With a total population that exceeds 4 billion, over half of the world’s population, increasing numbers of patients are accessing clinical services, technologies, and databases, and clinicians are gaining training, experience, and reliable information on a broad range of aspects of stroke care. Clinical research experience is improving through international links and fellowships, and health professionals from the region are eager to engage (and prove themselves) through participation in high-quality research and clinical practice. The Asia Pacific Stroke Organization (APSO) covers a vast and heterogenous geographical area, with much variability in language, governments, culture, historical links, socioeconomic development, and organization of health services. APSO seeks to improve the standard of stroke care in the whole region by improving communication and cooperation between stroke professionals and organizations in the region and peers in other regions, by means of annual congresses, workshops, and continued medical education. In the past year, we have achieved this through strengthened cooperation with other organizations such as the European Stroke Organization and the Asia-Oceanian Society for Neurorehabilitation and increased participation by nurses and other health professionals and had active consultation with nongovernmental organizations with shared commitments to those affected by stroke. APSO originated from an amalgamation of the Asian Stroke Forum and Asia Pacific Conference Against Stroke. Before September 2009, these organizations held large annual conferences, independently: Asian Stroke Forum, primarily based in Japan, had conferences in Tokyo and Kyoto, in 2005 and 2007, …