Poststroke Cardiovascular Management: Current Concepts, Integrated Care, and Future Developments

After an ischemic stroke patients often have cardiovascular complications known as stroke-heart syndrome. The cardiovascular management after stroke has a significant impact on life expectancy as well as the quality of life. The development and implementation of management pathways to improve outcomes for patients with stroke-heart syndrome requires a multidisciplinary involvement from health care professionals from primary, secondary and tertiary prevention levels. A holistic, integrated care approach could follow the ABC pathway: A) Appropriate antithrombotic therapy in all stroke/TIA patients in the acute phase as well as recommendations for the longer term treatment regimen are required to avoid recurrent stroke. B) For better functional and psychological status the assessment of poststroke cognitive and physical impairment, depression, and anxiety as part of routine poststroke work-up in every patient is necessary. C) Cardiovascular risk factors and comorbidities management further includes cardiovascular work-up, adapted drug therapy, but often also lifestyle changes that are central to the success of integrated care for stroke-heart syndrome. Greater patient and family/caregiver involvement in planning actions and the input and feedback on optimizing stroke care pathways is needed. Achieving integrated care is challenging and highly context dependent on different healthcare levels. A tailored approach will utilize a variety of enabling factors. In this narrative review, we summarize the current evidence and outline potential factors that will contribute to the successful implementation of integrated cardiovascular care for stroke-heart syndrome management.