The main symptoms of stroke can be remembered with the mnemonic FAST.
FAST stands for:
- Face – the face might drop on one side, the person may not be able to smile or their mouth may have dropped, and their eyelid may droop
- Arms – the person may not be able to lift both arms and keep them there because of arm weakness or numbness in one arm
- Speech – they might slur their speech or it might be garbled, or the person may not be able to talk at all despite appearing to be awake
- Time – it’s time to phone 999 immediately if you see any of these signs or symptoms
Occasionally a stroke can cause different symptoms which might include:
- loss of balance or dizziness.
- trouble seeing out of both eyes, sudden vision loss, blurry or double vision.
- difficulty understanding what others are saying.
- a sudden and very severe headache.
- loss of feeling in one side of the body.
- complete paralysis of one side of the body.
However, there are sometimes other causes for these symptoms.
Resources
For further information on the signs and symptoms of stroke, see NHS Inform.