What happens when someone has a stroke?

Answer 1

Stroke is usually a clinical diagnosis, meaning that it is diagnosed predominantly from signs and symptoms. These signs and symptoms can include facial droop, slurred or garbled speech, weakness, numbness, or tingling of the extremities, or visual disturbances.

The biggest factors of importance in the medical treatment of stroke are the time of onset of symptoms and the results of the CT scan. Approximately 20% of strokes are due to hemorrhage in the brain rather than a clot which can be treated with clot-busting medication. Time of onset is important because after 3 hours, the likelihood of the clot-busting medication causing more damage than good goes up.

Answer 2

It means that a blood vessel in the brain is blocked.

Answer 3

It's impossible not to know because you'd all of a sudden wake up in a hospital bed.