Diagnosis
How We Can Help You
Stroke is damage to the brain due to blocked blood flow, such as a blood vessel blockage or rupture. The loss of oxygen can cause part of the brain to die. Stroke can cause problems with movement, speech, memory, sensation, or vision.
At the Stanford Health Care Stroke Center, we provide rapid access to every type of diagnosis and treatment for stroke or potential stroke. Our teams work to advance testing, evaluation, and care to save lives and minimize damage due to strokes.
Our Palo Alto center was the first in the U.S. to receive The Joint Commission's Comprehensive Stroke Center designation. Our Pleasanton center is a Stroke Center of Excellence.
What We Offer You For Stroke
- Nationally recognized expertise in care to prevent stroke, diagnose and treat stroke, and support your rehabilitation after a stroke injury. Go to Conditions Treated
- Advanced diagnosis and emergency care to rapidly determine a stroke's cause, assess the damage, and create a personalized treatment plan. Go to Treatments
- Care delivered by specialists, including neurologists, neurosurgeons, vascular surgeons, and neurohospitalists, with expertise in the most complex types of stroke.
- Access to novel therapies and the benefits of new ways to predict stroke risks. Go to Clinical Trials
- Comprehensive support services, from rehabilitation to support groups, so you can focus on rebuilding and recovering after a stroke.
- Preventative and emergency care through two distinguished stroke centers, plus 24-hour air transport to provide urgent intervention. Go to Accessing Care
As a Comprehensive Certified Stroke Center, our neurologists, neurosurgeons, and vascular surgeons offer specialized treatment for all types of stroke. You have access to a wide range of the most advanced treatments available.
We are a Regional Stroke Trials Coordinating Center of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Stroke Trials Network. Stanford Health Care is one of just 25 stroke centers in the U.S. with this designation. Our team has helped developed advances in stroke care, which gives us the expertise to treat the stroke that affects you or your loved one.
Our center has pioneered new diagnostic and surgical advances to treat aneurysms and arteriovenous malformations (AVMs). Until recently, some aneurysms and AVMs were virtually impossible to treat without high risk to you. Today, we can treat these important causes of stroke and offer you the likelihood of a cure.
The Stanford Health Care Stroke Center was the world’s first designated Comprehensive Certified Stroke Center — the highest level of stroke certification available.
Treatment Overview
Stroke in Young People
After we diagnose stroke, a team of Stanford Health Care experts examines you carefully. We provide emergency care as needed. Then we develop a longer-term plan to reduce the risk of further stroke and help you recover. In the hospital, you receive care from our team of neurohospitalists, neurologists who have special training in treating people experiencing complex neurologic disease.
Throughout the process, we discuss your options with you and your family. We provide you with an honest assessment of the path forward so you can begin your recovery and healing.
Learn more about our advanced treatment options for all types and causes of stroke, including:
- Thrombotic stroke (cerebral thrombosis)
- Embolic stroke (cerebral embolism)
- Carotid embolism caused by carotid artery disease
- Subarachnoid hemorrhage
- Intracerebral hemorrhage
Transient ischemic attack (TIA)
Cryptogenic stroke (unknown cause)
Brain stem stroke
Stroke can strike at any age. Know what to look for and how to reduce your risk.
Most strokes occur in people who are age 65 or older. But up to one in 10 strokes in the U.S. occur in people younger than age 45.
The most common symptoms of stroke, including loss of speech, facial droop, and weakness on one side of the body, are the same at all ages. Other symptoms can include vision loss, double vision, slurred speech, dizziness, or difficulty walking.
Sometimes, people don't identify the cause of these symptoms in young people as a stroke. Stroke symptoms at any age need emergency care.
For older people, stroke most often results from atherosclerosis — cholesterol-laden plaque that hardens in the arteries and interferes with blood flow.
In younger people, risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and cigarette smoking can lead to atherosclerosis. Stroke in young people can also occur due to:
- Certain heart and hematologic (blood) conditions, such as arrhythmia
- Drugs, infections, and inflammatory conditions
- Genetic causes
- Unknown causes (cryptogenic stroke) in 25% to 35% of young people who have a stroke
The first treatment for stroke in young people is the same as for stroke in older people. At least 80% of all strokes at any age result from a clot that blocks blood flow in the brain. This type is called an ischemic stroke.
When appropriate, some people receive a clot-dissolving medicine called tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) or tenecteplase (TNK). Doctors may also decide to disrupt or retrieve a clot by threading a tiny catheter through an artery to where the clot is.
If they have no other health conditions that might interfere with stroke recovery, younger people tend to recover better from stroke damage than older people. Recovery in young people may also continue longer.
Doctors believe that improved recovery may be connected to the younger brain's natural ability to use undamaged brain circuits to take over the functions of damaged circuits. Older people may have reduced brain plasticity, but their recovery does continue.
Smoking increases the risk of stroke. Controlling traditional risk factors, like high blood pressure or diabetes, is essential regardless of age. Some specific and relatively rare genetic conditions, such as sickle cell anemia, have been associated with stroke in young people.
After we diagnose stroke, a team of Stanford Health Care experts examines you carefully. We provide emergency care as needed. Then we develop a longer-term plan to reduce the risk of further stroke and help you recover. In the hospital, you receive care from our team of neurohospitalists, neurologists who have special training in treating people experiencing complex neurologic disease.
Throughout the process, we discuss your options with you and your family. We provide you with an honest assessment of the path forward so you can begin your recovery and healing.
Learn more about our advanced treatment options for all types and causes of stroke, including:
- Thrombotic stroke (cerebral thrombosis)
- Embolic stroke (cerebral embolism)
- Carotid embolism caused by carotid artery disease
- Subarachnoid hemorrhage
- Intracerebral hemorrhage
Transient ischemic attack (TIA)
Cryptogenic stroke (unknown cause)
Brain stem stroke
close Treatment Overview
Stroke can strike at any age. Know what to look for and how to reduce your risk.
Most strokes occur in people who are age 65 or older. But up to one in 10 strokes in the U.S. occur in people younger than age 45.
The most common symptoms of stroke, including loss of speech, facial droop, and weakness on one side of the body, are the same at all ages. Other symptoms can include vision loss, double vision, slurred speech, dizziness, or difficulty walking.
Sometimes, people don't identify the cause of these symptoms in young people as a stroke. Stroke symptoms at any age need emergency care.
For older people, stroke most often results from atherosclerosis — cholesterol-laden plaque that hardens in the arteries and interferes with blood flow.
In younger people, risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and cigarette smoking can lead to atherosclerosis. Stroke in young people can also occur due to:
- Certain heart and hematologic (blood) conditions, such as arrhythmia
- Drugs, infections, and inflammatory conditions
- Genetic causes
- Unknown causes (cryptogenic stroke) in 25% to 35% of young people who have a stroke
The first treatment for stroke in young people is the same as for stroke in older people. At least 80% of all strokes at any age result from a clot that blocks blood flow in the brain. This type is called an ischemic stroke.
When appropriate, some people receive a clot-dissolving medicine called tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) or tenecteplase (TNK). Doctors may also decide to disrupt or retrieve a clot by threading a tiny catheter through an artery to where the clot is.
If they have no other health conditions that might interfere with stroke recovery, younger people tend to recover better from stroke damage than older people. Recovery in young people may also continue longer.
Doctors believe that improved recovery may be connected to the younger brain's natural ability to use undamaged brain circuits to take over the functions of damaged circuits. Older people may have reduced brain plasticity, but their recovery does continue.
Smoking increases the risk of stroke. Controlling traditional risk factors, like high blood pressure or diabetes, is essential regardless of age. Some specific and relatively rare genetic conditions, such as sickle cell anemia, have been associated with stroke in young people.
close Stroke in Young People
Clinical Trials
Clinical trials are research studies that evaluate a new medical approach, device, drug, or other treatment. As a Stanford Health Care patient, you may have access to the latest, advanced clinical trials.
Open trials refer to studies currently accepting participants. Closed trials are not currently enrolling but may open in the future.
What is a stroke?
Our Clinics
Nationally recognized specialists in conditions affecting the brain diagnose common and complex causes of stroke to provide precise, personalized solutions. In one convenient location, you can work with experts in neurology, neurosurgery, and interventional neuroradiology.
To schedule an appointment, call:
Palo Alto: 650-723-6469
Pleasanton: 925-263-5588