Symptoms Of Stroke

Symptoms of stroke are sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg, sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding speech, sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes, sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination and sudden headache with no reason. The symptoms also depend on the type of stroke and the area of the brain affected.

Symptoms like muscle weakness, numbness, reduction in sensory or vibratory sensation are caused when the area of the brain affected contains the central nervous system path systems -the spinothalamic tract, corticospinal tract and dorsal column.

Depending on which part of the brain is affected in most cases, the symptoms affects one side and defect in the brain is on the other side of the body. The symptoms of stroke may occur alone or in combination and might last for few seconds or upto 24 hours and then disappear.

There are 12 cranial nerves in the brainstem. If the brainstem is affected by a stroke it produces symptoms related to deficits in these cranial nerves like altered smell, taste, hearing or vision, drooping of eyelid and weakness of ocular muscles, decreased sensation and muscle weakness of the face, altered breathing and heart rate, decreased reflexes, balance problems, weakness in sternocleidomastoid muscle with inability to turn head to one side and weakness in tongue.

If the cerebral cortex is involved the following symptoms occurs like aphasia, apraxia, visual field defect, memory deficits, hemineglect, disorganized thinking, confusion, hypersexual gestures. If the cerebellum is involved, the patients have the symptoms like trouble walking, altered movement coordination, vertigo and or disequilibrium, loss of consciousness, headache, and vomiting usually occurs more often in hemorrhagic stroke than in thrombosis because of the increased intracranial pressure from the leaking blood compressing on the brain. Some heart attacks are sudden and intense while most of the heart attacks start slowly, with pain or discomfort. Stroke is a life-threatening emergency so if any of the symptoms occurs, get straight to the hospital.

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