Strokeupdate at the 8th Welsh Stroke Conference/ June 09

On 19th of June 2009, hundreds of doctors and allied health professionals were gathering in River Front in Newport City in Wales for the 8th Welsh Stroke Conference. Strokeupdate was at the conference and participated in the programme of the meeting.
The conference started with a lecture form Professor Steve Dunnett from Cardiff University. The professor was speaking about his experience with Parkinson’s disease patients and the benefit of stem cells transplantation in cases of stroke. Dr. Michel from Lausanne was speaking about the art of treating acute stroke. He summarised his experience in dealing with prevention and treatment of ischaemic and haemorrhaic stroke patients. The third speaker in the conference was D. Mark Bayley from Toronto, Canada. He presented his views about the translation of stroke rehabilitation evidence into practice. He spoke about the experiences of the Canadian stroke network. Mark mentioned some details about the SCORE project of 2003 and the benefit of integrating the severely stroke patients in the community and the feasibility of this process. He mentioned that it is vital to identify the barriers against implementing the guidelines for care for stroke patients.
Dr. Damaian Jenkinson was speaking about the improving stroke services and the role of clinical networks in UK. The last speaker in the first session of the conference was Professor Jonathan Mant from Cambridge University. He spoke about the subject of the role of primary care in developing stroke services. The afternoon sessions were mainly about stroke rehabilitation and one of the main risk factor for stroke the Hypertension problem and the recent developments in its management. Professor Anthony Ward was speaking in the first parallel session about the use of botulinum toxin in stroke rehabilitation- current evidence. The results of EXITE trial were presented in the conference by Professor Steven Wolf from Emory University in Atlanta.