Disability Progression

SEATTLE — Black patients with MS demonstrated a higher rate of disability throughout their disease course compared with white MS patients, according to a presenter at the 2022 American Academy of Neurology annual meeting.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic sparking more diverse research practices, individuals with disabilities have largely been excluded from such progress, according to a perspective published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

In 2019, more than 67 million adults in the U.S. reported having a disability, a 1% increase since the prevalence was last examined in 2016, according to findings published in JAMA Network Open.

Adverse mental health symptoms and substance use were more prevalent among U.S. adults with disability than those without before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to findings published in MMWR.

Researchers found an association between differences in treatment strategies for relapsing-remitting MS and disability outcomes at a national level, according to results of a cohort study published in JAMA Neurology.

Mobile stroke units vs. standard EMS response in patients with acute stroke.

Direct transfer to angiography suite vs. CT suite in patients with acute stroke who are candidates for endovascular treatment.

Patients who experienced a stroke and were treated by a mobile stroke unit were more likely to be treated within the first hour of symptom onset and more than twice as likely to be disability free at 90 days, a researcher reported.

Patients with suspected large vessel occlusion stroke transferred directly to the angiography suite at admission had better functional outcomes compared with those transferred to the CT suite, a researcher reported.

Decreased ganglion cell-inner plexiform layer thickness at baseline as assessed by optical coherence tomography correlated with a four-fold greater risk for long-term disability worsening in MS, according to findings published in Neurology.