St. Mary's is on the leading edge in Neuroscience care. In 2010, St. Mary's received the Get With The Guidelines Gold Plus Performance Achievement Award for stroke care from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. This award demonstrates that St. Mary's has met or exceeded the highest national standards for stroke care for two consecutive 12-month periods. The award is the latest step in St. Mary's ongoing effort to provide exceptional neuroscience care to our community.

• In 2010, St. Mary's and board-certified neurologist, Angela McSwain, MD opened St. Mary's Neurological Specialists. Today, Dr. McSwain, along with neurologist, R. Michael Steadham, MD, continue to enhance and expand St. Mary's Neuroscience continuum of care by providing non-emergent, outpatient neurology care at their practice in Watkinsville. Visit www.stmarysneuro.com or call 706-310-1859 for more information.
• In 2004, St. Mary's became the first community hospital in the nation, and one of the first 20 overall, to be certified as a Primary Stroke Center by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. This certification, continuously renewed every two years since, demonstrates that the stroke care provided at St. Mary's meets the highest standards in the nation.
• In 2006, St. Mary's was named a Neuroscience Center of Excellence by Neurosource, the nation's leading independent evaluator of neuroscience programs.
• In 2009, St. Mary's and neurologists C. Van Morris, M.D., and H. McCord Smith, M.D., teamed up to form the region's first neurohospitalist program.
• Also in 2009, St. Mary's teamed up with the Medical College of Georgia to provide the REACH stroke program in our Emergency Department. REACH allows our physicians to consult live via the Internet with leading stroke experts from MCG, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Neuroscience incorporates a wide range of conditions affecting some 15 million Americans. These conditions include:

• Stroke
• Spine, neck and back pain
• Lumbar spinal stenosis
• Brain tumors
• Aneurysm
• Alzheimer's Disease
• Traumatic brain injury
• Epilepsy
• Parkinson's disease
• Brain tumors
• Multiple sclerosis
• Spinal cord injury, and
• Dystoma

Neurosciences are the next frontier in modern medicine. In the past, many of these conditions were essentially untreatable, but in the last 30 years, medical science has made huge advances in diagnosing and treating neuroscience conditions. Today, advanced diagnostics such as high-speed CT allow doctors to administer medicines that can stop some strokes in their tracks. New surgical techniques and technologies allow for more - and more effective - surgical solutions. Advances in critical and rehabilitative care allow many people to return to active living.

For more information, see these pages:

St. Mary's Stroke Center
Stroke Care Gold Plus Award
Neuroscience Center
Neuroscience Continuum of Care
Neck, Back & Spine
O-arm Multidimensional Imaging System