An undated image of the human brain taken through scanning technology.Credit: Reuters/Sage Center for the Study of the Mind, University of California, Santa Barbara/Handout.
Yet another study has shown that people who are treated for stroke over a weekend tend to fare worse than those who are treated during the week, but the reasons remain unclear.
Canadian researchers found that people who checked into the hospital on the weekend tended to have more severe strokes than those who came in during the week, presumably because those with minor stroke symptoms chose to wait until Monday or Tuesday. However, when they used statistical tools to eliminate the influence of stroke severity on the findings, they found that the association remained - people who came to the hospital on the weekend were 12 percent more likely to die within 7 days than those who arrived during the week, regardless of the severity of their condition.
So what's the explanation? There may be unintentional differences in quality of care between the week and weekend, study author Dr. Moira Kapral at Toronto General Hospital suggested. She and her team actually found some signs of improved care over the weekend - such as a higher use of clot-busting drugs - but there may be additional differences they couldn't measure, she said. "For example, hospitals may have fewer staff working on weekends, or less experienced staff," she said.
