Introduction:Clinical characteristics to differentiate stroke subtype may be helpful to make sound decisionin managing blood pressure in clinically stroke patients. This is more important while en route patient to tertiary centre forneuroimaging facility and neurosciences services. The objective of this study is to determine the distinction between ischaemic and haemorrhagic stroke based on the clinical characteristics. Time of presentation was also calculated to determine the feasibility of thrombolytic therapy among stroke patients in Malaysia.
Methods:A cross-sectional observational study of all stroke patients presented to Hospital Kuala Lumpur from January 2005 to May 2005. All patients were subjected to brain CT. Clinical characteristics –age, gender, loss of consciousness (LOC), headache, vomiting, Glasgow coma scale (GCS), systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure –were assessed. Time of presentation was also determined. Multiple logistic regression analyses with the stroke types as the outcome (ischaemic=1 vs haemorrhagic stroke=0) were performed.
Results:A total of 143 patients (88 male and 55 female) were included. The mean age for haemorrhagic stroke was 51.1 (± 14.9) years oldand mean age for ischaemic stroke was 56.8 (± 9.7) years old.Our logistic model shows five clinical characteristics were associated with types of stroke–age, GCS, sex, headache and LOC. Male (adj. OR 0.18, 95% CI 0.05-0.59), headache (adj.OR 0.16, 95% CI 0.06-0.47), LOC (adj.OR 0.20, 95% CI 0.06-0.66), age in years (adj OR 1.06, 95% CI 1.01-1.11) and GCS (adj.OR 1.44, 95% CI 1.14-1.82)wereall significant (p-value < 0.05) in our model. Only 4.9% patients presented less than 3 hours and most of them (64.3%) presented more than 6 hours.
Conclusion:Male patients, having LOCandheadache were the clinical characteristics predictive of lower chance of having ischaemic stroke. But, increasing age and higher GCS were more likely to associate with ischaemic stroke. BP in clinically stroke patients that have higher odds for haemorrhagic stroke should be lowered with a target of SBP ≥ 140mmHg. There was significant delayed of presentation for stroke patients. Many factors need to be improved to reduce the time of presentation in the future.
Background:The rise in global popularity of triathlon competition requires the medicalteam to be familiar with variousendurance sport related injuries that may sustain throughout the race period. However, there have been very few published studies on the injury profiles of triathlon events heldlocally.
Objective: To describethe injury rate, the pattern of injuries, andtime of presentation for medical treatment among injured athletes at theultra-distancetriathlonevent held in Malaysiain year 2014.
Methodology:This cross-sectional studyanalyseddata from allathletes who sustained the injury that required treatment or assessment by the medical personnelduring or immediately after the triathlon race. Data on injured athletes were retrieved from Medical Encounter Form used during the race. All physical injurieswere documented based on body part affected, type of injury sustained and time of medical treatment sought.
Results: Approximately 30.7% (329/1073) of the athletes in our study population presented to the medical team for treatment during or immediately after the event, with 539 injuriesidentified among them. Injuries were more commonly seen among male, age group of 30–39 years old, and Asian athletes. The injuries more commonly sustained during the running discipline. Muscle cramps, sprains, and nausea and/or vomiting were the most common type of injury across all race disciplines. There was an apparent increasedin athlete presentation from 15:00 hours, and it remained high until 23:00 hours.
Conclusion: There was a wide range of injuries encountered by the competitors. Our resultswill add to the growing body of knowledge on local triathlon injuriesand helps the medicalteampreparation for future triathlon events.