Stroke is the number one cause of disability and the third leading cause of death in Australia.

HMRI’s Stroke Research Group is focused on understanding the basic mechanisms of the disease and investigating acute stroke therapies to reduce the massive burden this disease places on individuals, families and the community.

The group’s research covers the full breadth of stroke research from stroke epidemiology, genetics, health systems research to brain imaging, stroke prevention and recovery research.

Regarded nationally as leaders in the development and implementation of stroke care, HMRI’s Stroke Group is playing a major role in several state and nationwide studies including:

• Assessing the effectiveness of rigorous management of body temperature, blood glucose and swallowing safety strategies across 22 New South Wales acute stroke units in a cluster randomised controlled trial.
• Identifying of novel genetic risk factors for stroke
• Examining the utility of CT perfusion scanning in acute stroke
• Measuring the effectiveness of methods of stroke prevention in carotid surgery
• Investigating novel acute stroke therapies such as hypothermia and high flow oxygen.

Director of the Stroke Research Group Dr Chris Levi, chairs the Australasian Stroke Unit Network and is Medical Director of the National Stroke Foundation.

Dr Parsons, senior clinical academic is an international leader in acute stroke imaging and is directing the stroke imaging research activities.

Some recent achievements include:

• Establishment of a national stroke genetics research collaborative based around a large scale multicentre genetic association study.
• Establishment of the first multicentre collaborative interdisciplinary research project across the NSW GMCT stroke unit network.
• Establishment of a statewide capacity for health systems stroke research using the TASC online outcome measurements system.
• Co-author of the National Service Improvement Framework for Heart, Stroke and Vascular Disease and has served on the Commonwealth National Heart Stroke Vascular Health Strategies Group over the past two years.
• Authorship of the NSF Acute Stroke Care Guidelines.
• Design of and participation in the educational CD Rom illustrating key points in the above guidelines.
• Authorship of the National Strategic Improvement Framework for Heart, Stroke and Vascular Disease.
• Authorship of the cerebrovascular disease chapter of the Therapeutic Guidelines (3rd edition) currently in press.