Diagnostic and Treatment Options for Stroke

Atlantic Neuroscience Institute’s Stroke Center at Overlook Medical Center provides round the clock, comprehensive emergency diagnosis and treatment for stroke, transient ischemic attacks (TIAs), intracerebral hemorrhage, intracranial aneurysms, and arteriovenous malformations. We can transport patients via helicopter and ambulance from other stroke centers in the region.

Neuro-Interventional Care

Neuro-interventionalists and neurosurgeons at the Stroke Center at Overlook Medical treat a broad range of disorders, often using techniques that are far less invasive than traditional procedures. Our advanced technologies include:

• Biplane neuroangioagraphy – This technology creates a three dimensional image of the brain with just one dye injection, greatly simplifying the task of defining abnormalities and planning treatment. Not only are the images far superior to standard x-rays, but the patient requires fewer dye injections, minimizing risk and discomfort.
  
  
• Mechanical thrombectomy – Endovascular surgeons, utilizing either the Merci Retrieval System® or Penumbra System®, can capture and remove a blood clot in the brain up to eight hours following the onset of an ischemic stroke.
  
  
• Intra-operative angiography – In this procedure, x-ray dye is injected into the brain’s arteries during brain surgery, providing real time, immediate feedback to the surgeon, which improves accuracy and outcomes.
  
  
• Intracranial angioplasty and stenting – Stenosis, or narrowing of brain arteries, can lead to stroke. Neurosurgeons can treat stenosis by feeding a catheter into the narrowed artery, opening the narrowed segment with a tiny balloon, and then keeping the artery open with a metal tube (stent), improving blood flow. The procedure is similar to using stents for blocked arteries in the heart.
  
  
• Carotid angioplasty and stenting – Significant narrowing of the carotid artery can substantially increase the risk of stroke. Without using surgery, neuro-interventionalists can enlarge the artery from within and put a stent in place to keep the artery open. Patients with carotid stenosis who have severe heart disease or other conditions which render them poor candidates for surgery can be treated with these procedures.
  
  
• Embolization – To minimize the risk and difficulty of surgery, coils, balloons, beads and adhesives are used to block off the blood supply to an artery, either obliterating abnormal blood vessels or tumors, or greatly decreasing blood flow.
  
  
• 320 Slice Computed Tomography (CT) – A major step forward in CT technology, the 320-slice scanning machine is capable of scanning the entire brain in less than one third of a second, rapidly producing high quality, detailed images of the brain and measuring subtle changes in blood flow or minute blockages in blood vessels with a minimal dose of radiation.
  
  
• Transcranial Doppler – Doppler ultrasound measures the speed of blood flow in blood vessels and arteries. This noninvasive technique also assesses blood vessel spasm following subarachnoid hemorrhage and other types of stroke.
  
  
• Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) – This diagnostic tool uses a magnetic field and pulses of radio wave energy to produce photographs and films of organs and structures inside the body.

Inpatient Services

Available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the Stroke Center at Overlook Medical’s team quickly diagnoses and treats stroke victims, using “clot busters” - medications, primarily tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), that dissolve the clots blocking brain arteries – and technologies like the Merci Retrieval System® which can extract blood clots mechanically. Acute rehabilitation is an important part of recovery; Stroke Center patients receive physical, occupational, and speech therapy, plus social work services and assistance with discharge planning. Stroke prevention and treatment education is also provided to both patients and family members.

Outpatient Care

Among the outpatient services provided by Atlantic Neuroscience Institute are evaluation and management of patients who have had ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes or transient ischemic attacks (TIAs), and patients who have carotid artery narrowing (carotid stenosis). Rehabilitation services, community stroke screenings, stroke education programs, support groups, and rehabilitation and secondary stroke prevention groups are also available.