First year of COVID-19 pandemic saw fewer Alberta stroke patients, more deaths, study finds – CBC

Research published in Canadian Medical Association Journal

Mar 28, 2022

The first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Alberta saw fewer stroke patients, but a higher number of stroke-related deaths, according to new research.

The study, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, was conducted by a team of eight doctors and other researchers across the province.

“One of the things that we began to realize within the first few months of the pandemic is that there seemed to be a decline in the number of people presenting with acute strokes,” lead author Dr. Aravind Ganesh, a neurologist at the University of Calgary, said in an interview.

Several countries, he said, had started noticing a trend of fewer people seeking emergency care for a variety of medical issues during the pandemic.

“The question that people started asking was whether the public health restrictions that we had implemented as a result of the pandemic might be having some unintended consequences of dissuading people from attending at the hospital for emergencies like stroke and heart disease,” said Ganesh.

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/strokes-alberta-covid-study-deaths-1.6399981