Half the patients were fitted with stockings and half were not . About 10% of patients  in each group developed a Clot in the leg veins. This means that stockings do not reduce the risk of clots (DVT) in patients admitted to hospital with a stroke. This was a great surprise to many doctors and nurses since the stockings appear to work in other situations – for example in patients admitted for surgery.

Currently guidelines for doctors and nurse recommend that stockings should be used in stroke patients. These guidelines will now be  revised.

Stroke unit nurses have spent a lot of their time fitting patients with these stockings in the past. Hopefully, now that we know that this is not useful they will have more time for other duties.

The results of the CLOTS trial 1 have been reported widely in the press (see links to  articles at side menu on Homepage)