Prognostic value of electrocardiography and electroencephalography in patients with ischemic stroke.

OBJECTIVE

Stroke is the most common disease among neurological disorders, often resulting in handicap, complications and mortality. Recent studies revealed that electrocardiography (ECG) and electroencephalography (EEG) were noninvasive but effective methods to assess the prognosis of stroke patients. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the use of EEG and ECG for the prognosis of ischemic stroke.

METHODS

Thirty five patients with supratentorial ischemic stroke and muscle weakness were included in the study carried out at the Ali-EbneAbitaleb Hospital, Rafsanjan, Iran. At admission, muscle power was recorded for every patient. EEG and ECG were performed on patients within 12 hours of admission. The muscle power was re-evaluated for all study cases at 3 months. The data were analyzed using SPSS software; Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests.

RESULTS

Opium addiction (45.7%), hypertension (40%), and smoking (28.6%) were the most common risk factors. ECG change was seen in 71.4% of patients (ST-T change: 51.4%, QT: 22.9%). No significant correlation was seen between ECG and muscle power changes at three months among stroke patients. 57.1% of patients had mild to severe abnormality in EEG and a significant correlation was seen between EEG and muscle power changes at three months (P= 0.01).

CONCLUSIONS

This study showed that EEG abnormality was positively correlated with poor prognosis in our patients with ischemic stroke. This study did not show any significance for ECG, which may be due to a small patient number, and further study is needed.