[Acute stroke. Patients treated in a stroke unit in Trondheim]

Treatment in a stroke unit raises the proportion of stroke patients who are able to live at home, improves functional outcome, reduces the need for institutional care, and brings down mortality. We have evaluated the data on the first 800 patients treated in our stroke unit. Nine patients were incorrectly registered as acute stroke victims and were excluded from the analysis. Hence, 791 patients (429 men, 362 women; mean age 72.3 years range 35-101 years) fulfilled the criteria for acute stroke or TIA. In the group of 654 patients who had suffered an acute stroke, 85 patients (13%) had intracerebral haemorrhage, 439 (67.1%) nonembolic infarction, and 130 (19.9%) embolic infarction. The majority of the patients were discharged to home (55.4%), while 23.6% were discharged to a rehabilitation institution, and 6.1% were discharged to nursing homes. 48 (6.1%) of the patients died during the stay in hospital. The mean time spent in the stroke unit was 12.1 days.