Report of the Joint Committee for Stroke Facilities

Abstract

The use of special procedures and equipment has become an integral, progressively complex, and increasingly expensive part of diagnosis and management in cerebrovascular disease. However, tests have enhanced rather than replaced the role of precise neurological examination and sound clinical judgment in caring for the stroke patient. The physician is obligated to understand the nature, limitations, complications, costs, indications, contraindications, and values of the many available diagnostic modalities and to avoid their indiscriminate use; most, and in some cases all, of this information should be known as well by hospital administrators, nurses, allied health professionals, and even the patient and his family. This Section discusses the present status of radiological and other diagnostic studies in disorders of the cerebral circulation. Rapid changes are occurring in this field with the almost daily appearance of new procedures, modifications, and applications, thus increasing the responsibility of all concerned to keep current with these new developments.