BRAIN damage caused during strokes can be reduced simply by sitting patients
upright rather than letting them lie down.
Anne Rowat from Edinburgh University and her team looked at oxygen levels in
the arteries of 129 stroke patients in five different positions. She found that
oxygen levels dropped by 3 per cent when they were moved from a chair to a bed
(Cerebrovascular Diseases, vol 12, p 66).
Rowat says hospitals and clinics ought to introduce a policy on how to
position stroke patients.
