BACKGROUND: Dizziness is seldom the only symptom among patients who develop stroke but patients, hospitalized for vertigo are at higher risk of stroke than the general population. The proportions of patients who have remaining dizziness after a stroke seem to be unclear. OBJECTIVES: To study the frequency of dizziness among stroke patients referred to rehabilitation in primary health care and to study the relation between dizziness and gender, age, activity and self-rated health. METHODS: Patients with first-time stroke who were referred to rehabilitation in primary health care after the initial hospital stay were included. Dependence/independence in daily activities and self-rated health was measured. A question about whether the patient had experienced any dizziness or unsteadiness was asked. RESULTS: Sixty three patients were included in the study, (39 men, 24 women) aged 36-85 years. The majority of patients were dizzy (70%). Being female increased the risk of being dizzy substantially (OR 9.43). Patients with dizziness had poorer self-rated health than patients without dizziness (p = 0.001). CONCLUSION: Dizziness is a common symptom among patients with stroke, especially among female patients, and is associated with lower self-rated health. Therefore, it is important to address dizziness in the rehabilitation of stroke patients.

Familial amyloidotic polyneuropathy (FAP) is a dominantly inherited systemic amyloidosis caused by mutated transthyretin (TTR). Liver transplantation is currently the only available treatment that halts the progress of the disease. Cardiovascular complications are common in FAP, and cardiac arrhythmias are typical complications in FAP Val30Met. For patients with late onset FAP, as the Swedish patients, coronary heart disease has been found in several patients, and a QS complex is not an uncommon finding in FAP-patients ECG raising the suspicion of coronary heart disease. The aim of this study was to evaluate exercise ECG in FAP patients before transplantation with regard to mortality and morbidity. Thirty-eight FAP patients who underwent examination by exercise ECG, as part of the evaluation for liver transplantation were included in the study. Of these, 30 patients were transplanted, and the surviving patients were followed for at least 2 years. Exercise ECG was performed on bicycles with standard 12 leads. Non-parametric statistical analyses were used in all calculations. Six patients died 0-5.5 years after transplantation. They were older than the survivors (p < 0.01), but their duration of disease did not deviate from that of survivors (p = 0.8). They were also less able to increase their heart rates during exercise than the survivors (p < 0.05). For all transplanted patients, a significant relationship was found between patients' increase of heart rate, blood pressure and maximal workload, and the duration of disease and also for the PND-score, signifying that the outcome of exercise ECG predominantly was related to the patients autonomic and motor function, and not to their heart function.