Ingelheim And The World Stroke Organization Announce Partnership In The World Stroke Academy

Main Category: Stroke
Article Date: 29 May 2009 - 4:00 PDT

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Boehringer Ingelheim announced today that it will become the founding sponsor of the World Stroke Academy, a novel training initiative for stroke professionals being developed by the World Stroke Organization (WSO). This latest educational initiative from the WSO will bring together an international group of stroke experts - led by Professor Michael Brainin of the Danube University Krems, Austria - to provide information about stroke and knowledge for health professionals and medical doctors in order to improve prevention, therapy and management of stroke.

Professor Bo Norrving, President of the WSO said: "The World Stroke Academy is a project of the World Stroke Organization and aims at improving education on a global scale. It is a platform open to all stroke societies aiming at global effectiveness of fighting stroke and its physical and mental consequences."

Dr. Manfred Haehl, Corporate Senior Vice President Medicine, Boehringer Ingelheim said: "Boehringer Ingelheim is committed to patient care and we are proud to support initiatives that have potential to benefit all patients. Stroke is one of the biggest causes of death and severe disability worldwide, and a great many patients simply don't have access to specialist care. We hope the World Stroke Academy will contribute to training a new generation of specialists who can help provide that care."

The World Health Organization estimates that 5.7 million people in the world die each year from stroke. Among survivors, 40% experience moderate to severe disability and 10% require institutional care.

The World Stroke Academy aims to provide a mixture of online and conventional activities to educate and help facilitate training of stroke professionals across all regions of the world. Key objectives of the initiative include:

- Promoting knowledge and education on stroke management on a global level according to the WSO mission statement
- Improving and standardising educational standards in primary and secondary stroke prevention, acute management and rehabilitation
- Leveraging guidelines to ensure best practice is implemented within all regions of the world
- Further developing the WSO as a leading global educator.

Source
Boehringer Ingelheim