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A stroke happens when blood stops reaching part of the brain, so brain cells in that area are damaged or die. It usually arrives without warning: one side of the face droops, an arm goes weak, speech comes out slurred or jumbled. Because brain tissue is lost minute by minute, stroke is treated as an emergency from the first sign.
A stroke is not a problem of the heart, although heart conditions can cause one. Most strokes happen when a clot blocks a blood vessel in the brain, and the rest happen when a vessel tears and bleeds into the brain. Telling those two apart changes the treatment completely, and it can only be done with brain imaging in hospital, which is why nobody can sort it out at home.
It is also not something that only happens to older people, and a warning stroke is not a false alarm. A transient ischemic attack, sometimes called a mini-stroke, is a short blockage that clears within a day, and it still needs urgent assessment because it can be followed by a larger stroke. Heart & Stroke reports that the number of younger people having strokes in Canada is rising. The FAST signs and the instruction to call 9-1-1 apply at any age.
Which signs appear depends on the part of the brain affected, so a stroke can look quite different in two people. The common thread is that symptoms begin suddenly.
Some risk factors cannot be changed:
Others can often be worked on, usually with support from a health care team:
Stroke is diagnosed urgently in hospital. Emergency teams do a neurological exam and send the person straight for brain imaging, usually a CT scan and often a CT angiogram or CT perfusion study, sometimes an MRI, to tell a clot from a bleed and to see which vessel is blocked. Blood tests, an electrocardiogram and heart rhythm monitoring follow, along with an ultrasound of the neck arteries and an echocardiogram, to look for the cause. Ambulance crews in Canada take people with suspected stroke to the nearest hospital that provides urgent stroke care rather than to the closest hospital overall.
Care comes in stages: opening the blocked vessel or controlling the bleed, then preventing another stroke, then rehabilitation. Time matters for the first stage, and eligibility for those treatments is decided in hospital. Across those stages, a health care team may discuss:
Recovery paths differ widely, and so do the services available in each region. What happens next is worked out between you, your family and your own care team, and nothing on this page is a recommendation about any specific treatment.
Many people arrive too late for the time-limited treatments, large numbers are left with lasting disability, and there is still no established treatment that repairs brain tissue after the event. Studies now recruiting are testing wider time windows and imaging-based selection for thrombolysis and thrombectomy, newer clot dissolving agents such as tenecteplase, and factor XI inhibitors for stroke prevention. Others are studying treatments for bleeding strokes, cell and drug therapies aimed at recovery, brain stimulation and robot-assisted rehabilitation, telestroke and prehospital care models for rural and remote Canada, and the detection of silent atrial fibrillation after a stroke of unknown cause.
Those questions are answered in clinical studies, including studies in rehabilitation and recovery that run months after the event. Taking part is voluntary, you or a substitute decision maker give informed consent before anything begins, and you can withdraw at any time without affecting the care you get from your own team. No one can say in advance whether a study will help you personally.
This page is written in plain language for people considering clinical research. It is general health information, not medical advice, and it does not replace a conversation with your own doctor or nurse practitioner.
Face, Arms, Speech, Time. Check whether the face is drooping, whether the person can raise both arms, and whether speech is slurred or jumbled, then call 9-1-1 right away if any of these are present. Heart & Stroke uses this wording across Canada, and it helps to note the time symptoms began, because treatment decisions depend on it.
Yes. Heart & Stroke reports that the number of younger people having strokes in Canada is rising, alongside the overall increase driven by an ageing population. The FAST signs and the instruction to call 9-1-1 apply at any age.
Recovery varies widely and depends on the part of the brain affected, how quickly treatment was given, and access to rehabilitation. Canadian data show that more than half of stroke survivors report fair or poor health and about half report limits on mobility, and Canadian Stroke Best Practices set out what rehabilitation services should be offered.
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