ACUTE ISCHEMIC STROKE

Among all deaths, 40-50% are due to vascular events and out of these 10% aredue to stroke. More than 66% of the global stroke occurrence is in developing countries, wherethe average age of patients with stroke is 15 years less than in developed countries. Objectives:To determine the correlation between higher total cholesterol level and high Barthel Indexscore(estimate of functional daily independent activity level) in patients with acute ischemicstroke. Design: Cross sectional study. Period: May 2013 to Apr 2014. Setting: Medical Units ofDHQ and Allied Hospital, Faisalabad. Methodology: Sample size of 200 patients was collectedand patients were included through Consecutive (non-probability) sampling technique. Allpatients underwent CT scan Brain from the radiology department of the hospital to determinethe respective changes (hypo dense area) of the ischemic stroke. Fasting serum cholesterolwas measured in all patients after an overnight fast of 12 hours. Then patients were assessed byusing Barthel Index score (BI). The data was analyzed by using SPSS version 16.0. SpearmanRank correlation coefficient was calculated to BI score in patients with ischemic stroke. Results:The mean age of the patients was noted as 61.76±11.55 years. In this study 55.50% weremales and 44.50% patients were females. The mean total cholesterol value of patients wasnoted as 251.58±71.15 mg/dl. Out of 200 patients, 111(55.5%) patients had high cholesterol(>200mg/dl) whereas 89(44.5%) patient had low cholesterol of( 53) whereas 48.50%patients had low Barthel index score (<53). Spearman correlation coefficient was calculatedbetween high TC and high BI score as r= 0.641. This value was statistically significant i.e.p-value=0.000*. Conclusions: With the help of this study, we found a significant positiverelationship between high TC and high BI score in patients presented with ischemic stroke.Now we can better prognosticate the functional outcome of ischemic stroke in our patients.