New device ‘could revolutionise stroke diagnosis’

Researchers are trialling a new bedside electronic device that could greatly facilitate the often expensive process of diagnosing a stroke.

The new innovation is a video-oculography machine that detects minute eye movements that are difficult for most physicians to notice, making it easy to determine whether the cause of severe, continuous, disabling dizziness is a stroke or something benign.

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine tested the device on 12 patients, half of whom were undergoing a stroke and six of whom were not, delivering a 100 per cent diagnostic accuracy rate.

It is hoped that in future, this could become the equivalent of an electrocardiogram, the simple noninvasive testing method routinely used to rule out heart attack in patients with chest pain.

Dr David Newman-Toker, an associate professor of neurology and otolaryngology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said hospitals are currently wasting money on "expensive stroke work-ups that are unnecessary and probably missing the chance to save tens of thousands of lives because we aren't properly diagnosing their dizziness or vertigo as stroke symptoms".

This comes in the same week that the UK government has begun airing a new TV advertising campaign to help people react more quickly when someone they know is suffering a stroke.