Headache may be one of the signs that ischemic stroke is imminent, researchers from the Ural State Medical University and the Ural Federal University say. As Gazeta.Ru reports referring to the Ministry of Education and Science, the new study was based on the study and classification of headache in patients, as this symptom is one of the signs of an approaching or already accomplished stroke. Researchers divided the pain into 3 groups:
  • Pain already familiar to patients;
  • pain that the subject has never experienced before;
  • pain with variable characteristics (intensity, duration and other accompanying symptoms).
It turned out that the first and the last type of pain was most often revealed in patients who had suffered a stroke. 15% of this group had experienced headache a week before the stroke, and another 15% reported feeling such pain at the onset of the stroke. The specialists structured the findings with the already existing criteria of headaches caused by stroke and then modernized the methods of diagnosis. According to the specialists, the work carried out makes it possible to detect stroke in one third of patients.