This statement provides guidelines for health care providers on how to evaluate patients with suspected TIAs. This condition occurs when: Temporary blockage of blood to the brain causes stroke-like symptoms that resolve quickly.
Guidance says symptoms tend to go away within an hour, so diagnosing a suspected TIA can be difficult.
For many years TIA was commonly referred to as mini-stroke, but this term is a misnomer.in the news release, AHA officials say TIAs are “more accurately described as warning strokes. Cause a complete stroke in a patient. Nearly half of these full-blown strokes occur within just two days, write the scientists.
The guidelines ask health care providers to use both brain imaging and risk assessment scores to determine whether a stroke has damaged the brain and to point out patients at greater risk of stroke. Your provider should examine your symptoms and medical history, then perform a CT scan to rule out conditions that can mimic a TIA.
Patients should have an MRI scan within 24 hours of symptom onset, the report recommends.
Rural and underserved hospitals without on-site neurologists or with limited access to images can interconnect providers and transfer patients to hub hospitals for imaging. You’ll need to take a picture or join a telemedicine network that arranges an outpatient MRI, the guidance says.
“Incorporating these procedures in people with suspected TIAs may help identify patients who would benefit from hospitalization and those who can be safely discharged from the emergency room with close follow-up.” Hardik P. Amin saidAssociate Professor of Neurology who chaired the Society’s Scientific Statement Writing Committee, in a news release. Amin is Yale’s director of stroke medicine at New Haven Hospital.
A TIA shares the same symptoms as a stroke: a drooping face, weakness in the arms, difficulty speaking, and dizziness. People with other cardiovascular risk factors such as obesity, high blood pressure and smoking are at increased risk.
