Stroke Symptoms

Stroke or what is also known as brain attack is a serious medical emergency that requires immediate medical attention. As most strokes do not cause severe pain, a lot of patients often delay seeking for treatment, resulting in extensive brain tissue damage

Most common and general stroke symptomsinclude sudden onset of:

• Weakness, numbness or paralysis of the face, arm, or leg, typically on one side of the body only.
• Having difficulty seeing in one or both eyes. Having dimness, blurring, or loss of vision.
• Being in confusion or having trouble understanding.
• When speaking, words are slurred or garbled.
• Finding it difficult when walking. Being dizzy and, loss of balance and coordination.
• Bothersome headache.

Still, symptoms for stroke vary depending on whether the stroke is caused by a clot or bleeding, the location of the blood clot or bleeding and the extent of brain damage.

Symptoms of an ischemic stroke
(This stroke is caused by a clot blocking a blood vessel) usually occur in the side of the body opposite from the side of the brain where the clot occurred. For example, a stroke in the left side of the brain affects the right side of the body.

Symptoms of a hemorrhagic stroke
(This stroke is caused by bleeding in the brain) can be similar to those of an ischemic stroke but symptoms may be distinguished relating to higher pressure in the brain and includes severe headache, nausea and vomiting, stiffness of the neck, dizziness, seizures, irritability, confusion, and possibly even unconsciousness.

Stroke symptoms may progress over minutes, hours, or days, and often in a stepwise fashion. A simple weakness may progress to an inability to move the arm and leg on one side of the body.

Recognizing symptoms of a small stroke is not easy. The symptoms are mostly mistaken and can be attributed to aging, or may be confused with those of other conditions that have similar symptoms.

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