Stroke: Cause, Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation

Abstract

This publication is a smaller version of the encyclopedic workFundamentals of Stroke Care, published in 1976 by the senior author. This earlier work, about double in size, must still be considered the source book for everything related to stroke—epidemiology, causative and risk factors, pathology, prevention, medical and surgical management, and rehabilitation. This smaller volume being reviewed fulfills the promise in the title. Particularly fine sections are the ones on epidemiology, diagnosis, nursing care, and organization of community health services for stroke. All elements of patient care receive appropriate treatment—what Lewis Thomas refers to as nontechnology, halfway technology, and decisive technology, although the latter has little application as yet to stroke. The nontechnology, addressed to the needs and life problems of patient and family, receives appropriate and extensive discussion. One might say appropriate to some future era, as it is doubtful that this aspect of stroke is as yet honored