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

MRI and Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy While my husband was in the Stroke Unit they were able to compare his MRI results to those taken two years earlier. It showed a substantial increase in the number of microbleeds throughout his brain in the last two years, all of which had been apparently asymptomatic. Of course this raises the question of how can you have a stroke and not know about it? In CAA it is common for microbleeds to occur without the person or their loved ones being aware of it. It's only when you do an MRI that you can see them. They generally don't show up in a regular CT scan. The image above shows a typical MRI of a person with CAA. So what is your approach and that of your medical practitioners into the future? Given that there is no known cause, no treatment and no cure, do you really want to have 6 monthly or annual scans to prove the deterioration of the condition? What purpose does that serve? We decided, in conjunction with his specialist, that there was li...

  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 ...