LECTURERS

Agnethe Eltoft, MD, PhD

Agnethe Eltoft is a specialist in neurology with expertise in stroke care, clinical stroke research, and cardiovascular disease epidemiology. She holds a PhD focused on biomarkers and atherosclerosis as predictors of cardiovascular disease, based on data from the population-based Tromsø Study. Eltoft works as a senior consultant at the Neurology Department, University Hospital of North Norway, Tromsø, and as an associate professor at the Department of Clinical Medicine, UiT The Arctic University of Norway. She is affiliated with the Brain and Circulation research group.

Her clinical and research interests include acute stroke care, neuroimaging, and the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to support clinical decision-making. Eltoft has contributed to national and international randomized controlled stroke trials and is involved in several regional initiatives. These include projects focused on integrating AI into stroke diagnostics and treatment workflows, as well as implementing remote-controlled CT scanning combined with telestroke-guided assessment and treatment to improve decentralized stroke care in rural areas. She also leads a project evaluating the potential benefits of atrial fibrillation screening in the general population.

Through interdisciplinary collaboration, her efforts are aimed at advancing diagnostic and treatment strategies to better serve patients and address challenges in stroke care delivery.

Dorte Damgaard

Dorte Damgaard is senior consultant at Department of Neurology, Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark. She is working with treatment of acute stroke and stroke rehabilitation. Her research is focusing on cardioembolic stroke and secondary prevention of stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation including trials with LAAO.

Kateriine Orav

Kateriine Orav works as a neurologist in the Neurology Department of North-Estonia Medical Centre in Tallinn, Estonia. From 2020-2022 she was a member of the European Stroke Organization Young Stroke Physicians and Researchers Committee. Currently, she is a board member of the Nordic Stroke Society and president of the Estonian League Against Epilepsy. Her research interests are status epilepticus, acute symptomatic seizures and epilepsy imaging. 

Dr. Martinez-Majander

Dr. Martinez-Majander is a neurologist at the Department of Neurology, Helsinki University Hospital. He’s chairing the ESO Membership Committee and is a member of the ESO Guideline Board. In 2019, Dr. Martinez-Majander also graduated from the ESO European Master in Stroke Medicine Programme (Danube University Krems, Austria) and in 2023 from the Evidence-Based Health Care Programme (University of Oxford). His PhD focused on risk factors and long-term outcome in early-onset cryptogenic stroke. 

Juhan Reimand

Juhan Reimand is a neuroradiologist at North Estonia Medical Centre. After completing his medical degree at the University of Tartu in 2012, he went on to pursue a combined residency in radiology and nuclear medicine. In 2021, Dr. Reimand defended his PhD, a joint program between Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Tallinn University of Technology, focusing on amyloid diagnostics in Alzheimer’s disease. He has been awarded the European Diploma in Neuroradiology and is currently undergoing the studies for the European Diploma in Pediatric Neuroradiology. His clinical and research interests are centered on advanced neuroimaging techniques, with a particular focus on stroke, dementia and epilepsy.

Associate Professor Melinda B. Roaldsen MD 

Associate Professor & MD Melinda B. Roaldsen is the Head of the Clinical Research Department at the University Hospital of North Norway and Vice Head of the Department of Clinical Medicine at UiT, The Arctic University of Norway.

Roaldsen is the Chief Operating Officer of the Stroke Action Plan for Europe, the largest stroke project ever undertaken in Europe, ESO guideline board member and part of ELASF scientific committee. She has conducted stroke research since -2014 and have experience with large international multi-centre randomised controlled trials, such as IST-3 and TWIST, the latter being the largest RCT ever performed in wake-up stroke. She is also the lead author of several Cochrane reviews. She suffered a stroke in 2023 due to a carotid artery dissection and has since then been advocating for raising awareness about stroke and driving positive change by working synergistically and through promoting research in forming real-world action plans and policies.

Ainars Rudzitis

Ainars Rudzitis is an Associate Professor at Riga Stradins University and a cardiologist at Pauls Stradins Clinical University Hospital, Latvian Centre of Cardiology (Riga, Latvia). He holds a PhD in Medicine and is Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology (FESC). He has extensive training in cardiology, including echocardiography and cardiac catheterization, with experience from institutions in Latvia, Switzerland, France and Germany.

Dr. Rudzitis is the Chairman of the Board of the Rare Diseases Research Fund (Latvia) and a member of the Latvian Society of Cardiology. He serves as a proctor in the Baltic States for Abbott Structural and CARDIA devices. His current research is related with cardio-embolic stroke prevention (device based left atrial appendage occlusion, PFO closure). He has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and is recognized for his contributions to research on pulmonary hypertension and structural heart disease.

Jori Ruuskanen

Jori Ruuskanen, MD, PhD, is a Finnish neurologist and associate professor (Docent) of neurology at the University of Turku, specializing in neurology and clinical pharmacology. He serves as an acute neurologist at the Neurocenter, Turku University Hospital, and as a medical specialist at Medbase, Turku. In 2024, he was appointed Head of the Stroke Section of the Finnish Neurological Society.

Dr. Ruuskanen has contributed to numerous clinical studies in acute stroke treatment and stroke secondary prevention. His own line of research focuses particularly on ischemic stroke and cerebral venous thrombosis, with collaborations extending to pharmacological aspects of traumatic brain injury. His research has been widely published in high-impact journals such as Stroke, Neurology, and J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. His recent work also addresses outcomes and statin use after ischemic stroke.

He is fluent in Finnish, English, Swedish, and French, and actively contributes to the European Stroke Organisation, Finnish Pharmacological Society, and Finnish Neurological Society.

Geert Verheyden

Geert Verheyden is a physiotherapist and professor at the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences at KU Leuven. He specializes in neuro- and stroke rehabilitation, having obtained his PhD on the topic of trunk impairment after stroke from KU Leuven in 2006. 

From 2006 to 2010, Geert was a postdoctoral researcher at the stroke rehabilitation research center at the University of Southampton (UK). He then co-initiated the first German independent BSc program in physiotherapy at the Applied University of Health Sciences in Bochum (Germany) from 2010 to 2011. 

Since 2011, Geert has been the stroke rehabilitation research lead at KU Leuven, steering a research team of currently one postdoc and 5 PhD researchers, and two research assistants into sensorimotor deficits and assessment, recovery, and rehabilitation in the upper limb after stroke. 

Together with Margit Alt Murphy (Sweden), Geert has co-chaired two initiatives initiated by the European Stroke Organisation (ESO); to develop a definition for motor rehabilitation after stroke and accompanying framework (published in European Stroke Journal in 2023), and most recently the development of the first ESO guidelines for motor rehabilitation after stroke. 

Anders Sode West

Work 

I work full time as a Stroke doctor at the acute stroke unit at University Hospital Rigshospitalet.  

where I also handle IVT and EVT patients. I am also involved in post stroke neurorehabilitation, where I also have my research interest. 

I live in Copenhagen, Denmark and I have 4 children and a wife who is an anesthesiologist. 

Research interests: 

I am interested in post stroke complications, why they occur and the multiple effects it can have on the human body mentally and physiologically.  

I have been involved in research during the last 10 years on post stroke complications, especially regarding sleep disturbances after stroke, circadian disturbances in relation to stroke, post stroke depression + anxiety, and post stroke fatigue. In our group we are also focused on the impact strokes have on our metabolism, including the coagulation system. 

One of our achievements was to demonstrate that circadian light during admission for post stroke rehabilitation, seems to improve post stroke complications regarding depression, fatigue, anxiety and levels of melatonin and cortisol.