Stroke secondary to cardiogenic embolism

Symptoms:

• weakness or total inability to move a body part
• numbness, loss of sensation
• tingling or other abnormal sensations
• decreased or lost vision, may be partial, may be temporary
• language difficulties (aphasia)
• inability to recognize or identify sensory stimuli (agnosia)
• loss of memory
• vertigo (abnormal sensation of movement)
• loss of coordination
• swallowing difficulties
• personality changes
• mood and emotion changes
• urinary incontinence (lack of control over bladder)
• lack of control over the bowels
• consciousness changes:
  • sleepy
  • stuporous, somnolent, lethargic
  • comatose, unconscious

Signs and tests:

A person's medical history may indicate a risk for systemic emboli (clots that travel from another location in the body). An examination may include neurologic, motor, and sensory testing to determine the specific neurologic deficits present, because they often correspond closely to the location of the injury to the brain. The examination may show changes in vision or visual fields, clots in the retina of the eye, changes in reflexes including abnormal reflexes or abnormal extent of "normal" reflexes, abnormal eye movements, muscle weakness, decreased sensation, and other changes. The pulse may be irregular. Abnormal sounds may be heard by listening to the heart with a stethoscope. There may be signs of emboli (splinter hemorrhages, and so on).

Tests include:

• head CT scan
• MRI of head
• ECG showing arrhythmia, such as atrial fibrillation
• echocardiogram to determine other heart disorders