A silent stroke comes without any noticeable symptoms. Most strokes are caused by a clot that blocks a blood vessel in the brain. This blockage prevents blood and oxygen from reaching that area, causing nearby brain cells to die. Depending on the location of the clot, it can cause symptoms like weakness in an arm or leg, facial deviation, slurring of speech, balance problems or difficulty in vision. In silent stroke, the area of damage is quite small and occurs in a part of the brain that doesn't control any vital functions, so the stroke remains undetected ischemic strokes. Silent strokes happen when the blood supply to a part of your brain is suddenly cut off, depriving your brain of oxygen and damaging brain cells.
Contributing factors to a silent stroke include:
Symptoms of silent stroke are so subtle that they’re often mistaken for signs of aging, like:
According to the American Stroke Association, silent strokes also increase your risk of having a symptomatic stroke. Having multiple silent strokes puts you at risk for Vascular dementia also known as multi-infarct dementia. Symptoms of vascular dementia include:
We can diagnose silent strokes from these subtle symptoms and imaging like CT or MRI Brain.
Treatment of silent stroke
You can do many small, practical things to help your memory if silent strokes have impaired your cognitive abilities. Try these steps:
To prevent silent stroke :
Like ischemic strokes, silent strokes happen when the blood supply gets cut off to a small area in the brain damaging the brain cells. Silent strokes have cumulative effects on the brain’s health and physical and mental abilities.
The author is an Associate Consultant, Department of Neurology, KIMSHEALTH.