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TIA: A Warning Not to be Ignored

Summary & Participants

TIA, or transient ischemic attack, can be described as a "light stroke" -- but this doesn't mean it should be taken lightly. While a TIA does not cause damage to the brain, it is a serious "brain attack" which puts you at higher risk of having a full-blown stroke sometime down the road. Our panel of experts will discuss the causes and symptoms of TIA, and address what you must do afterwards to reduce your risk of future attacks.

Medically Reviewed On: July 08, 2008

Webcast Transcript

PAUL J. MONIZ: Hi, there. I'm Paul Moniz. Thank you for joining us on this webcast. Today's topic is stroke, specifically a light stroke known as TIA or transient ischemic attack. TIA is certainly not a household term but knowing the warning signs could save your life. Each year a 150,000 Americans die of stroke. It is the third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer. Most people know a stroke is caused when a blot clot or hemorrhage reduces the flow of blood to the brain. What is not widely known is that a stroke does not have to produce physically devastating symptoms to cause damage. In fact, a patient may experience only mild dizzy spells, loss of balance and numbness and actually discount the symptoms as something else. In fact, that patient may have had a mini-stroke which could be a warning sign for something much more serious.

Here to discuss these mini-strokes or TIA are two specialists in the field. To my left is Dr. Ralph Sacco. He is an Associate Chairman of Neurology at Columbia University. Next to him, we have Dr. Dara Jamieson. She is also a neurologist at Pennsylvania Hospital and an Associate Professor of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania.

How do we draw the distinction between TIA which most people have never heard of and regular stroke, so to speak?

RALPH L. SACCO, MD: Most people know the term "stroke" and they have someone, maybe in their family, that's had a stroke. Stroke will cause some kind of damage that is lasting -- weakness, numbness, tingling. Some kind of neurological symptom. Difficulty speaking. Slurred speech. Difficulty walking.

A TIA is something on more the mild side. It's transient. Usually the symptoms occur, resolve and are gone. Most of us define a TIA as something lasting less than 24 hours, although the new terms actually are maybe even less than an hour. Where they'll have transient neurological symptoms: sudden loss of vision, weakness on one side of the body, numbness, tingling, difficulty speaking, difficulty walking -- that would last only minutes to hours, and then resolve and leave you back to normal. That's what we would call a TIA. Actually nowadays, the term "brain attack".

PAUL J. MONIZ: The patient would really have no idea that they've just had a stroke.

RALPH L. SACCO, MD: They would know that they have neurological symptoms. Most people may recognize these symptoms, often ignoring them, but they wouldn't be left with lasting damage, whereas stroke will usually leave impairment, though many strokes will improve as well. It's kind of a continuum where the longer you have the neurological symptoms, the more likely that there has been some injury to the brain. While TIA, we think of has no injury actually has occurred but the fact that it's a warning that maybe injury could occur.

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