If you or someone else has any signs of a stroke, call 999 immediately.
Ambulance paramedics are trained in stroke. They will assess you and take you to the right type of hospital for the treatment you need. This could be a hospital with a specialist stroke unit or a hyper-acute stroke unit. A stroke unit has a mixed group of healthcare professionals (interdisciplinary team) who are experienced in stroke care.
The important thing when a stroke happens is time. The faster someone can get to a specialist stroke unit, the better their chances of reducing damage to the brain.
How is an ischaemic stroke diagnosed?
Once you’re admitted to hospital, you have tests and checks to confirm if you have had a stroke and what type of stroke it is.
Brain scan
If you have a suspected stroke, a brain scan should be carried out urgently within one hour of arriving at hospital. A brain scan can show what type of stroke you have had. It can also help doctors decide if you are suitable for an emergency treatment such as clot-busting treatment (thrombolysis) and mechanical clot removal (thrombectomy).
A computed tomography (CT) scan or a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan is used to produce detailed pictures of your brain. Doctors use scans to rule out other causes of your symptoms and see how much of your brain has been affected. It also helps them decide how best to treat you, as treatments are different depending on the cause and timing of your stroke.
Some types of scan can involve an injection of a special dye, to highlight the blood vessels of the neck and brain more clearly. These are known as computed tomography angiography (CTA) or magnetic resonance angiography (MRA).
Other checks and tests
Your blood pressure will be checked and you will have blood tests for health conditions linked to stroke, such as diabetes and high cholesterol.
You may have other tests to check for conditions that could have contributed to your stroke. These include an electrocardiogram (ECG), which checks for an irregular heartbeat, or a scan to check for narrowing of the blood vessels in your neck.