Organisation of inhospital acute stroke care and minimum criteria for stroke care units. Recommendations of the Belgian Stroke Council

There is ample evidence front randomized trials that for patients with stroke, stroke unit care is superior to care ill general medical or neurological wards. This evidence, which has been adopted by international guidelines has to be implemented into daily stroke care. This consensus document prepared by the Belgian Stroke Council provides a set of minimum criteria to meet international standards for stoke care. It is intended to provide help ill the creation of stroke units in centers who do not currently have one and to provide a benchmark for centres already having organised stroke care

Stenting is improving and stabilizing anatomical results of coiled intracranial aneurysms.

INTRODUCTION: Stent-assisted coiling (SAC) is an alternative to surgical clipping for the treatment of wide-necked intracranial aneurysms (IA). However, little information is available concerning the long-term results of this treatment. The aim of this study was to report the long-term clinical and anatomical findings in 32 patients with 34 wide-necked IA treated by SAC. METHODS: A retrospective review of our prospectively maintained database identified all patients followed up for wide-necked IA treated by SAC. The clinical charts, procedural data, and angiographic results were reviewed. RESULTS: Thirty-two patients with 34 IA were identified including 25 asymptomatic patients, four with cranial nerve palsies, two with a subarachnoid hemorrhage, and one with transient ischemic attacks. Mean aneurysm size was 10.2 mm (range 3.5 to 26 mm). Embolization was successful in all patients and no procedure-related neurological morbidity or mortality was observed. Immediate anatomical results included nine complete occlusions (26.5%), two neck remnants (6%), and 23 incomplete occlusions (67.5%). Mean imaging follow-up of 20 months showed 18 further thrombosis (53%) and 16 stable results (47%). Finally, 27 aneurysms were completely occluded (79%), three had a neck remnant (9%), and four were incompletely occluded (12%). Asymptomatic and nonsignificant in-stent stenosis occurred in seven patients (22%). CONCLUSIONS: SAC is safe and effective for the treatment of wide-necked IA. Despite unsatisfying immediate aneurysm occlusion, the adjunctive effect of the stent is stabilizing or significantly improving long-term anatomical results.Journal Articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

The long march of history: Farm wages, population, and economic growth, England 1209-1869 -super-1

The article forms three series for English farm workers from 1209-1869: nominal day wages, the implied marginal product of a day of farm labour, and the purchasing power of a day's wage in terms of farm workers' consumption. These series suggest that labour productivity in English agriculture was already high in the middle ages. Furthermore, they fit well with one method of estimating medieval population that suggests a peak English population c.1300 of nearly 6 million. Lastly, they imply that both agricultural technology and the general efficiency of the economy were static from 1250 till 1600. Economic changes were in these years entirely a product of demographic shifts. From 1600 to 1800, technological advance in agriculture provided an alternative source of dynamism in the English economy. Copyright Economic History Society 2006.

Mapping peasant discontent: trespassing on manorial land in fourteenth-century Walsham-le-Willows

In recent years, it has largely been the domain of the landscape archaeologist to uncover and analyse the physical terrain of the late medieval manor. This has provided much material for the examination of ideas of rural power, control and social organisation. Considering the morphology of the settlement and adjacent fieldscape, it is rare, however, to reflect upon the views of the peasantry, who would after all have made up the majority of the population of rural communities. Using evidence gathered from fourteenth-century manorial court rolls, this study examines peasant attitudes to the rural landscape from an historical perspective through the analysis of incidences of trespass on demesne and peasant land in the Suffolk vill of Walsham-le-Willows. Unusually, these documentary sources frequently make reference to the specific location of peasant trespass allowing for a quantitative investigation that reveals something of the motivation behind these seemingly petty and notionally accidental incidents. Traditionally, cases of trespassing on neighbouring land have been considered only fleetingly by historians, since it is generally believed that many incidents were the result of accidental damage by wandering livestock, or that manorial officials used court fines as a means of licensing access. This study shows that the reality was far more complex, and that there was a range of motivational stimuli for these acts