Mini Stroke Warning Signs

Mini Stroke Warning Signs (and/or symptoms) are the neurological manifestations a patient experiences that are related with a TIA (transient ischemic attack). By definition the ministroke manifestations resolve is less than 24 hours, but if they persist beyond 24 hours then it is called as a stroke.

Stroke warning sign may be a better phrase because a mini stroke serves as a warning sign for a stroke in the future (either immediate or later), but the above phrase too is frequently used by public.

A ministoke for brain is similar to angina for heart. Both these indicate the underlying pathology of the circulation and serve as a warning manifestation for the possible future major attacks like a full blown stroke or a heart attack.

So it is highly preferred that the general population is aware of these manifestations so they could seek early medical intervention and hopefully fix the problem and avert a major heath catastrophe.

Remember once a stroke or heart attack process has started, even if now a days there are treatments available at this acute stage, but still there is no guarantee that such treatments are going to help. Also these treatments e.g. clot busters (thrombolytic agents) like tPA, streptokinase etc can produce severe life threatening bleeding.

It is clear that the best policy is prevention of these major episode happening, so people should be aware of these warning manifestations. If they occur then preferably patient dash to the nearest emergency rook for further management.

If you are looking for more details on TIA (ministroke) and/or Stroke then please click on the links. Just to get a basic idea of a list of the warning signs of a ministroke continue reading this article.

What manifestations a patient will experience depends upon what area of the brain is involved. Virtually any area of the brain may suffer from decreased or absent blood supply due to a blockage in an artery, and accordingly an exhaustive list of neurological signs and symptom can occur.

The commonly encountered manifestations are listed below;

Cranial nerve system;

• Doble vision
• Drooping of eye lids
• Nystagmus
• Visual loss (e.g. hemianopias)
• Pupillary dilatation or constriction
• Horner’s syndrome
• Facial droop etc

Motor system;

• Hemiplegia or hemiparesis (one sided limb weakness)

Sensory system;

• Hemisensory loss (one sided sensory symptoms)

Coordination system (cerebellar);

• Ataxia (incoordinaton)

- Gait ataxia
- Incoordination of arms

• Cerebellar type speech etc

Extrapyramidal system;

• Resting tremors
• Rigidity of limbs
• Bradykinesia or slowing of motor activities etc

The list is actually very big and includes lot more manifestations like seizures, fainting, vertigo (spinning sensation), speech difficulties and so on, but this Mini Stroke Warning Signs article is just a head start, the point is any of the above mentioned or some strange, unusual symptoms happen then it should be brought to the attention of a health care provider at the earliest.

A Neurologist is frequently involved in the care of ministroke and strokes.