Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy Symptoms: Let's talk about it.

 Compassion and Connection can come from surprising places. Some time ago I presented to Accident and Emergency with mild chest pain. I was not concerned but thought that it was prudent to have it checked out as we are always being told. I was not surprised that my cardiac function was fine.  The staff did a couple of other tests and while waiting for the results of these, one of the A and E doctors came to see me to have a chat. I mentioned that my husband had Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy and I had recently started taking an anti depressant and that it was probably just some physical manifestation of mild anxiety. What did surprise me was his reaction when hearing of my circumstances. He took one look at me, went and shut the door to the cubicle and pulled up a chair and said to me with such sensitivity "that is a horrible, horrible disease". Most medical and other practitioners that I and my husband come across have never heard of the condition. Not only did he immediately u...

  The "Triple Whammy" of CAA No known cause, no cure and no treatment (except ensuring blood pressure is well controlled) Amyloid plaqes that are present in the brain in dementia, instead build up in the blood vessels of the brain. This results in either the plaques blocking the brain (causing ischaemic strokes) or makes the blood vessels more fragile causing haemorrhagic strokes). This is the double whammy. There is so much research and improvements in treatment for ischaemic strokes including “clot busting” drugs, but these cannot be used for someone with CAA. The triple whammy is that the person also has multiple “micro bleeds” which are generally asymptomatic, and often you won’t be aware of them unless you have an MRI scan.   These microbleeds lead to a background of ongoing cognitive impairment which mimics progressive dementia.        Finally, the other risk is that you don’t know when the next major stroke will be. You just know that i...

  The first major stroke caused by CAA One night two years later, my husband was acting sort of strange. He was very quiet. Didn’t say a lot. I asked if he was Ok. I even asked if he was annoyed with me. He said no but didn’t say a lot else. He was due to go out that night to see a film with some friends which he did (driving half and hour there and half an hour back). When he returned home he seemed OK. The next day he just didn’t seem to be himself. Still quiet, said he had a bit of a headache and was tired but that he was OK. I had a funeral to attend some distance from home (I needed to go and there was not enough to make me think I should stay) but I just felt in my gut that something was not right. I rang him a couple of hours later, he was not making any sense in his speech and I could not understand what he was trying to tell me. He also sounded very confused. I immediately thought that he’d had a stroke, I called a family member who lived locally who went around to see ...

Too young to have a stroke? We spent the weekend trying to get our head around what had happened. How could this be? He was so young. These sorts of things don’t happen at our age but of course these sorts of things can happen at any age.  We met with the neurologist on the Monday and his whole approach put us more at ease and he was easily able to identify the source of my husband's  symptoms. A small Sub Arachnoid Haemorrhage on the outside of the left side of his brain was clear on the MRI. This type of bleed causes a blood clot to sit on the surface of the brain and as it resolves over time it becomes irritated and sets off some temporary symptoms. He told us that it should resolve in a few weeks. However, the multiple strokes (very minor) identified by the radiologist were present but the neurologist said that this was not uncommon in people of his age but that it could be a condition called Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy. He was gentle with us, for which I am eternally grat...

  8% of older people in Australia live with Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy My husband and I were relaxing after dinner one night a number of years ago, when all of a sudden he let out a yell and jumped up and told me that he had pins and needles in his R hand and that it was spreading up his arm to his face. Over the next few minutes it spread down his whole right side to his leg and foot. He had full movement. Ten minutes later it was gone. He was not yet 60. In hindsight, I don’t know why we didn’t go to a hospital straight away but we were on a holiday, somewhat isolated, sort of in a state of shock; and it all disappeared so quickly. Having worked as a health professional, you think of all the possibilities that it might be from some sort of neck or spinal problem (rule that out because the R side of his face had gone numb) and many other things including a stroke, but it all just disappeared as quickly as it came. It scared us though. We packed up our brief holiday break and ...