HEALTHY LIVING Silent Strokes: A Stealthy Killer


One in five older Americans will suff er one. Ignoring it could prove fatal. ::


BY CHRIS ILIADES, M.D. T


here is a type of stroke that can happen without any symptoms. Called a silent stroke, it


is surprisingly common. Although it doesn’t cause symptoms right away, repeated silent strokes can cause problems with memory and may lead to a condition called vascular dementia. A silent stroke also increases your


risk for a full-blown stroke, the fi fth- leading cause of death and a major cause of long-term disability. All strokes are caused by interrupted


blood fl ow to the brain. When brain cells are deprived of oxygenated blood, they start to die. A ministroke, or transient ischemic


attack (TIA), causes the same symptoms as a regular stroke, but the symptoms don’t last as long. They may last only a few minutes, and are


often ignored. However, a ministroke is an early


warning sign for a regular stroke. One in three ministrokes will be followed by a regular stroke within 48 hours. A silent stroke is diff erent from


a ministroke. “When someone is diagnosed with a silent stroke, they do not recall having any symptoms. By defi nition, a silent stroke really is silent,” explains Andrew Russman, D.O., a neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic Cerebrovascular Center. “The reason these silent strokes


often go undetected is because they are too small to cause signifi cant damage to lead to symptoms or they occur in parts of the brain that do not control speech, vision, or movement”, says Vincent J. Noori, M.D., a vascular


surgeon at The Vascular Center at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland.


HOW COMMON ARE SILENT STROKES? “They are very common,” says Noori. “In fact, they are much more common than ministrokes or regular strokes.” According to Harvard Medical


School’s Harvard Health, for every person who has had a stroke with symptoms, about 14 people have had a silent stroke. “The frequency of silent strokes


varies with age,” says Russman. “In people under age 55, silent strokes are very rare, but by age 70 or 80, they may occur in 20 percent of people.”


HOW ARE SILENT STROKES DIAGNOSED? If silent strokes don’t cause any symptoms, how do we know they have even occurred?


A silent stroke also increases your risk for a full-blown stroke, the fi fth-leading cause of death and a major cause of long-term disability.


82 NEWSMAX MAXLIFE | OCTOBER 2021


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