News Release on behalf of the Canadian Stroke Best Practice Recommendations Advisory Committee, in collaboration with the Canadian Stroke Consortium, Canadian Neurological Sciences Federation, and CanStroke Recovery Trials Platform.
New release from the Canadian Stroke Best Practice Recommendations: Vascular Cognitive Impairment, 7th Edition, 2024. An important new module has been added to the Heart & Stroke Canadian Stroke Best Practice Recommendations (CSBPR) portfolio. We are excited to announce today’s release of the new Vascular Cognitive Impairment module. Vascular Cognitive Impairment can be a devastating condition for individuals, their families and caregivers, and there are often delays in recognition, diagnosis and treatment. The new CSBPR Vascular Cognitive Impairment (VCI) module provides guidance to healthcare providers working across the continuum of care, who are caring for adult individuals who present to the healthcare system with VCI signs and symptoms. This module is targeted at managing individuals who are already exhibiting VCI signs and symptoms, both with and without overt stroke, and for those with VCI secondary to other vascular conditions such as heart failure, atrial fibrillation, or hypertension, with or without neurodegenerative disease. This module is unique in this perspective and provides a more comprehensive approach to diagnosis and management of VCI. For the CSBPR 7th edition update, VCI has been elevated to a stand-alone module to emphasize the importance of this condition across the heart and brain vascular spectrum. This redesigned and expanded module provides guidance across the continuum of care for individuals experiencing VCI including awareness of signs and symptoms, screening, assessment, diagnosis, pharmacological and non-pharmacological management, secondary prevention of VCI, active rehabilitation and end-of-life planning and care. Heart & Stroke gratefully acknowledges the VCI co-chairs Dr. Richard H. Swartz and Dr. Stewart Longman and all scientific writing group members, external reviewers and our collaboration with the Canadian Stroke Consortium, Canadian Neurological Sciences Federation, and CanStroke Recovery Clinical Trials Platform. We are fortunate to have active participation from members of the Community Consultation and Review Panel (CCRP). The CCRP includes people with lived experience of VCI, including individuals with VCI and their family and caregivers, who have contributed throughout the development of these recommendations and supporting resources. This ensures the relevance of this module and brings the lived experience voice to the forefront. A new VCI Infographic and a unique VCI Journey Map were developed in collaboration with the VCI CCRP. The experiences of individuals with VCI and their caregivers across the continuum of care have not previously been well defined. To ensure these VCI best practice recommendations reflect and consider the lived experience of individuals with VCI and their families, a VCI Journey Map was created to capture their critical needs and challenges from symptom onset to pre-diagnosis, to diagnosis, to management and living with VCI. Additionally, the VCI Infographic highlights information from the module to help individuals understand VCI and take charge of their recovery. Canadian Stroke Best Practice Recommendations: Vascular Cognitive Impairment has been published in the Alzheimer’s & Dementia journal and is part of the seventh edition of the Heart & Stroke Canadian Stroke Best Practice Recommendations. Additional methodology and information on these recommendations, including Rationale, System Implications, Performance Measures, Knowledge Translation and Implementation Tools and an extended Summary of the Evidence is available online on the Canadian Stroke Best Practices website. For more information about the Heart & Stroke Canadian Stroke Best Practice Recommendations visit www.strokebestpractices.ca. For questions and comments, please contact us at strokebestpractices@heartandstroke.ca. |