Our Research
Dr. Elisabeth Marsh is the Medical Director of Bayview Medical Center’s Stroke Program and, along with Dr. Rafael Llinas, runs the Bayview Stroke Intervention Clinic (BaSIC). BaSIC is a multidisciplinary outpatient clinic. Patients are seen within 4-6 weeks of their discharge from the Bayview Neurology Service so that key follow-up issues including post-stroke depression and fatigue can be addressed; persistent symptoms managed; and medications reconciled. Patients and families have the opportunity to see their stroke on neuroimaging, with the goal of truly understanding why the stroke occurred and the best way to decrease the chance of a future event. Our multidisciplinary approach allows for those with continued needs to be directly linked to our rehabilitation services. The program has already led to higher post-discharge follow-up rates, better adherence to risk factor modification strategies, and decreased rates of re-hospitalization.
Stroke recovery
Patients are seen for follow-up at 1, 6, and 12-months post-infarct. Many of these patients have relatively small strokes, as shown on the right image in these brain MRI scans. Patients with a stroke of this size typically lack major motor and language impairments and can appear as though they are fine. However, during their clinic visits, patients with these “small” strokes often express feeling very fatigued, inattentive, unable to concentrate, cognitively slow, etc. While they may not have a visible disability, they still struggle to return to work and normal life due to this cognitive dysfunction.
Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
Eligible patients with small strokes and difficulty with cognition on testing in our clinic travel to our partnering institute where they undergo magnetoencephalography (MEG). Similar to an MRI, the MEG records which areas of the brain are active during various activities. Testing is performed about 1 month after stroke and repeated at 6, 12, and 24 months. Our preliminary data are exciting!