Warning Symptoms of Stroke

(a) Sudden unexpected weakness, numbness, blindness (usually one eye), speech problem, double vision etc, that improve within minutes to hours. But this is an emergency. Take any such symptom seriously, and see a neurologist (for blindness not only an eye specialist, a common mistake) for further management.

To make it easy to remember, often people use the acronym FAST, which stands for:

• F – Face (facial asymmetry, drooping of angle of mouth)
• A-Arm (weakness, difficulty in using)
• S – Speech difficulty (trouble speaking, inability to speak or slurring)
• T – Time to act.

Message: if you have any symptoms involving F-A-S. then it’s Time to act immediately.  But this acronym misses other symptoms like changes in sensation, eye symptoms, and leg symptom.  I have therefore changed it to FASTEST, i.e.

• E – eye (vision-related symptom, blindness in one or both eyes, or double vision)
• S – sensation loss (numbness)
• T – Trouble walking

It may sound better to use the first T to mean ‘trouble walking’ and the second T to mean ‘Time to act’. (F- face, A-Arm, S- speech difficulty, T-trouble walking, E-eye (vision problem), S- sensation loss, T- time to act)

(b) Sudden severe headache of the type never experienced before in life:  this may be a warning for a ‘leakage’ type of stroke i.e. brain hemorrhage.  Must get a CT scan of head done to rule out brain hemorrhage (subarachnoid hemorrhage)