Stormy skies could send more patients to the emergency room, according to an analysis of weather systems and medical data by researchers in Hungary.
Published in the journal Heliyon, the study uncovered a link between turbulent weather – marked by strong wind, increased precipitation, and rapidly shifting conditions – and spikes in neurological conditions such as stroke and brain haemorrhage.
Most studies in this area have focused on the effects of specific meteorological parameters on medical data. What makes this study different is that it takes a synoptic climatological approach, considering the patterns of weather systems over a specific geographic area; in this case, the Carpathian Basin.
Scientists from Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), Semmelweis University, and Jahn Ferenc South-Pest Hospital and Clinic collected medical data on 34,650 patients presenting with neurological symptoms at a prominent county hospital in Budapest between 2015 and 2019.
The researchers then applied Péczely classifications, a procedure that characterizes daily weather patterns.
Péczely classifications feature 13 distinct weather patterns, providing “a robust framework for exploring the phenomenological links between complex atmospheric circulation and the volume of patients needing emergency care,” explained Brigitta Szilágyi, an associate professor from Corvinus University of Budapest and BME.
Mathematically modeling the relationships between synoptic weather types and neurological emergencies helped researchers identify a significant increase in emergency room visits on days classified as Péczely types 4 and 7 – typically cloudy, windy, and wet.
“On wet, windy, unstable days, several environmental factors – rapid shifts in temperature, barometric pressure, and humidity – simultaneously stress the cardiovascular and central nervous systems,” explained Gábor Lovas, a neurologist from Jahn Ferenc South-Pest Hospital and Clinic.
Lovas said epidemiological studies report that such conditions are associated with increased emergency visits for both ischaemic and haemorrhagic stroke and seizures, especially in individuals with pre-existing neurological or vascular disease.
“Proposed mechanisms include blood pressure lability, dehydration, autonomic dysregulation, and sleep alteration, all of which can precipitate cerebrovascular events or destabilise already vulnerable populations,” Lovas continued.
Adverse weather also disrupts sleep and circadian rhythms through higher night-time temperatures, noise, and pressure fluctuations. These disturbances are well-recognised triggers for seizures, delirium, and decompensation of dementia, Lovas added.
It may come as no surprise, then, that large population-based studies and climate-health reviews link stormy or extreme weather with increases in hospitalisation for epilepsy, dementia and stroke, suggesting climate and weather variability are important modifiers of brain health rather than mere background factors.
Researchers also developed an accurate predictive simulation model to estimate the expected patient load of neurological patients arriving at the ER based on Péczely weather classifications.
“The models fit the data well,” said Bence Sipos, a doctoral student at BME. “For hospital planning, the relevant finding is that certain synoptic transitions raise the caseload by 50–80% above the daily average. The Péczely type for a given day can be read off standard synoptic forecasts, which gives enough lead time to bring in an additional neurologist on days where workload demand is likely to peak.”
Such modelling “helps ensure the hospital is ready for an anticipated surge in demand,” added Szilágyi. She believes patient education is equally important and “one of the most cost-effective ways of reducing the burden on healthcare providers.”
The findings suggest that weather may play a greater role in brain health than previously thought, and Szilágyi is planning further analyses exploring how specific meteorological parameters, like temperature change or humidity, or their derivatives, like the wind chill index, alone or in combination with air pollution data, could affect emergency room neurological admissions on “stormy” versus “stable” days.
Hearsay has long linked the weather and changing seasons with changes in mood and a worsening of symptoms of migraine, epilepsy, and stroke. It seems, according to this study at least, that there is some truth to the anecdotal evidence.
This research was published in the journal Heliyon
Source: Corvinus University of Budapest
Fact-checked by Mike McRae
