Increased Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio is Associated with Unfavorable Functional Outcome in Acute Ischemic Stroke

Neurocritical Care - Inflammatory response is the hallmark of secondary brain injury in stroke patients. Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) emerged as a marker for functional outcome in several...     

Initiating anticoagulant therapy after ICH is associated with patient characteristics and treatment recommendations

Journal of Neurology - The proportion of patients with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) and concomitant indication for oral anticoagulant (OAC) therapy is increasing. Although recent studies...     

Impact of Recent Studies for the Treatment of Intracerebral Hemorrhage

Purpose of Review

The present review will cover most recent and important studies on acute treatment of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH).

Recent Findings

Overly pessimistic prognostication in ICH may deny meaningful recovery achieved by specialized neurocritical care. Hematoma enlargement represents the most important target of acute ICH care, which is reduced by aggressive blood pressure management (targeting a systolic blood pressure of 140 mmHg) and appropriate hemostatic treatment especially in anticoagulation-associated ICH (INR reversal using prothrombin complex concentrates, eventually idarucizumab, andexanet, or tranexamic acid). Surgical treatment strategies involving fibrinolytics either used for direct hematoma lysis or used for intraventricular clot removal with/without additional lumbar drainage show great promise. Further novel treatment strategies are underway and need validation or evaluation strongly warranting well-designed future ICH research.

Summary

Several randomized and large-sized observational studies have considerably expanded the field and the evidence on how to treat acute ICH patients. Yet, the one breakthrough intervention to improve functional outcome is still missing, though various treatment concepts possibly interacting with one another have been evaluated and such treatment bundle may improve patients’ outcome.

     

The phase model of psychotherapy outcome: Domain-specific trajectories of change in outpatient treatment

Objective: The Phase model of psychotherapy outcome assumes a log-linear trajectory of change and allows predictions about the three outcome domains of Well-being, Symptoms, and Interpersonal functioning. Although the model has been partly validated, little is known about the types of trajectories in the specific domains and about the transferability of the model to treatments of longer duration. This study tested whether the domain-specific change trajectories followed a log-linear curve as postulated by the Phase model. Furthermore, it was examined whether the speed of change differed between the domains. Method: Growth curves were modeled using hierarchical linear modeling on an outpatient sample (N?=?351), with treatment duration averaging 52 sessions. Results: A log-linear curve best explained the change trajectories of the domains Well-being and Symptoms as well as the Global score of psychopathology, whereas Interpersonal functioning tends to improve in a linear pattern. Estimated slopes were biggest for Well-being and smallest for Interpersonal functioning. Conclusions: In the present study, the predictions of the Phase model concerning multidimensional phases were validated. The finding that trajectories of change are not uniformly log-linear, but either log-linear or linear in a domain-specific manner, is partly inconsistent with the model.

Clinical or methodological significance of this article: This article extends previous research in the field of psychotherapeutic change by providing results from the modeling of change trajectories in psychotherapeutic treatments with larger amounts of sessions (i.e., more than 20 sessions). Our findings of domain-specific different shapes (i.e., log-linear for Well-Being and Symptoms and linear for Interpersonal functioning) and speed (i.e., fastest for Well-Being and slowest for Interpersonal function) of trajectories of psychotherapeutic change may be clinically applied by means of guidelines for therapists to plan and adapt their treatments. In addition to content-related aspects of a continuous adjustment of treatment goals (e.g., merely symptom-oriented or focusing on interpersonal change) and interventions, this adaptive planning is also related to health care considerations (e.g., may justify longer treatments if therapy goals target several domains of change).