Changing Demographics of Stroke Mimics in Present Day Stroke Code Era: Need of a Streamlined Clinical Assessment for Emergency Physicians.

Background There is an apparently high incidence of stroke mimics in the present-day stroke code era. The reason being is the intense pressure to run with time to achieve the time is brain”-based goals.Methods The present study was a retrospective analysis of the data collected over a duration of 6 months from April 2019 to September 2019. We observed the incidence of stroke mimics among the patients for whom rapid response stroke code was activated during the study period. We also performed a logistic regression analysis to identify the clinical features which can act as strong predictors of stroke and mimics. Results A total of 314 stroke codes were activated of which 256 (81.5%) were stroke and 58 (18.5%) were the mimics. Functional disorders and epilepsy were the most common mimics (24.1% each). Female gender (p = 0.04; odds ratio [OR] 2.9[1.0–8.8]), isolated impairment of consciousness (p