Stroke Services —— Policy and Practice Across Europe

----- 中风服务：欧洲各地的政策和实践

ISBN: 9781857754551 出版年：2018 页码：157 Wolfe, Charles McKevitt, Christopher Rudd, Tony CRC Press

If you had to have a stroke, where in Europe would you choose to suffer it? This is the central question in this book on the assessment of stroke services, raised in the final evaluating chapter. Stroke is one of the leading causes of death in contemporary European countries, and often leaves its survivors disabled and dependent on professional and family rehabilitation services and care. Both its incidence and case-fatality have decreased dramatically in the past decades, but evidence from different sources suggests that a plateau phase has been reached. Some authors have argued that the prevalence of stroke has increased dramatically in the elderly, because increased survival enables stroke to repeat itself frequently in the same patient. Further, sharp decreases in stroke incidence or mortality are not very likely to occur and at this current stage, it is appropriate to evaluate the role of health services in shaping epidemiological trends and heterogeneity across European countries. In order to identify possible causes of change in the epidemiology of stroke and to isolate health services within a causal complex affecting population outcomes (including risk factors, stroke severity and stroke management), measurement is the central theme. Measurement involves topics such as mortality certification and coding, aspects of stroke severity and case-mix, and cost-effectiveness. Each of the nine chapters of this book focuses on portions of this central topic of measurement. Most of the authors are associated with the European Union-funded BIOMED programme, and the book’s empirical material is hence derived for a substantive part from the BIOMED I and BIOMED II centres. As such, the book is also concerned with the evaluation of what BIOMED has achieved until now and what is still left for further exploration.