Our Comprehensive Stroke Center Is Internationally Known for Stroke Treatment
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center is known worldwide for our pioneering work in stroke treatment, including cerebrovascular treatment innovation, diagnostic technologies and improved outcomes in stroke care. Ours was one of the first three stroke centers in the country designated by the National Institute of Neurologic Diseases and Blindness.
Designated by JCAHO as a Primary Stroke Center, Wake Forest Baptist offers all of the components crucial to the delivery of care needed by patients with serious cerebrovascular disease. A multidisciplinary approach combines the expertise of faculty in neurosurgery, interventional radiology, emergency medicine and neurology. Interventional radiology offers a state-of-the-art neuroradiology suite dedicated to neurointerventional procedures. Special equipment is used to guide advanced therapeutic procedures for stroke treatment, such as revascularization of acute arterial occlusions, stenting of occlusive vascular lesions in the carotid arteries and intracranial blood vessels coiling of aneurysms and angioplasty.
Neurosurgical procedures are often performed in the management of a patient’s stroke treatment, including simple and complex intracranial procedures; craniectomy and hemispheric decompression inpatients with a large area of affected brain; carotid endarterectomy; skull-based approached to aneurysm clipping; AVM resection to prevent stroke or stroke recurrence while minimizing disturbances of normal brain tissue; and stereotatic radiosurgery to treat AVMs.
Our dedicated neurology inpatient unit includes 16 beds assigned to patients receiving stroke treatment and is designed to meet the needs of patients with ischemic stroke, TIAs and hemorrhagic stroke.
Rehabilitation after a stroke is crucial to speed recovery and enhance quality of life. At Wake Forest Baptist, the J. Paul Sticht Center for Rehabilitation specializes in post-stroke rehabilitation. Physical, occupational and speech therapists are on staff and are readily available by consultation for patient assessment and therapy during hospitalization.
Learn more about our department of neurosciences and how we are constantly working to improve stroke treatment.