title: Intensive care management of acute stroke: general management.
abstract: For a long time, patients with severe stroke were facing therapeutic nihilism of the attending physicians. Implementation of do-not-resuscitate-orders may have lead to self-fulfilling prophecies and to a pessimistic overestimation of prognosis of severe stroke syndromes. However, there have been great advances in intensive care management of acute stroke patients and it has been shown that treatment on a specialised neurological intensive care unit improves outcome. In this review, we will present a summary of the current state-of-the-art intensive care management of acute stroke patients. After presenting an overview on general management of stroke intensive care patients, special aspects of neurological intensive care of acute large middle cerebral artery stroke, intracerebral haemorrhage and subarachnoid haemorrhage will be discussed. In part II of the review, surgical management options for acute stroke will be discussed in detail.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 400, Heidelberg 69120, Germany. jennifer.diedler@med.uni-heidelberg.de
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Diedler
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sykora
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Jüttler
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Steiner
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hacke
mesh_terms: D003422:Critical Care / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration; D005343:Fibrinolytic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D006801:Humans; D020244:Infarction, Middle Cerebral Artery / Q000628:therapy*; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D020521:Stroke / Q000451:nursing / Q000628:therapy*; D013345:Subarachnoid Hemorrhage / Q000628:therapy*; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D005343:Fibrinolytic Agents