Stroke care in India has evolved rapidly in the last decade with a focus on stroke awareness, prevention, rapid triage, treatment, and rehabilitation. But acute stroke care and poststroke rehabilitation in the country have limitations owing to the economic constraints and poor access to health care. The SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic has made stroke care even more challenging. We outline the unfavorable circumstances in stroke care induced by the pandemic; propose mitigating measures; crisis management; and provide a comparative evaluation of stroke care between India and the United States during the pandemic. There is a need for public health systems in both developed and developing countries to improve awareness, implement proper strategies of triage, acute treatment, well-defined rehabilitation plans, telemedicine services, and virtual check-ins.
Stroke is a major health problem world-wide and its burden has been rising in last few decades. Until now tissue plasminogen activator is only approved treatment for stroke. Angiogenesis plays a vital role for striatal neurogenesis after stroke. Administration of various growth factors in an early post ischemic phase, stimulate both angiogenesis and neurogenesis and lead to improved functional recovery after stroke. However vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGF) is the most potent angiogenic factor for neurovascularization and neurogenesis in ischemic injury can be modulated in different ways and thus can be used as therapy in stroke. In response to the ischemic injury VEGF is released by endothelial cells through natural mechanism and leads to angiogenesis and vascularization. This release can also be up regulated by exogenous administration of Mesenchymal stem cells, by various physical therapy regimes and electroacupuncture, which further potentiate the efficacy of VEGF as therapy in post stroke recovery. Recent published literature was searched using PubMed and Google for the article reporting on methods of up regulation of VEGF and therapeutic potential of growth factors in stroke.
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