A transient ischemic attack (called a TIA) can lead to increased risk of future strokes. A TIA is sometimes called a “mini-stroke,” and often is transient and short-lived. Some TIAs lasts only a few minutes. It happens when the blood supply to part of the brain is briefly blocked. The thing is, transient ischemic attacks may prelude later strokes.

Symptoms of a TIA are like other stroke symptoms, but are not as serious. They happen suddenly, and include numbness or weakness, especially on one side of the body.  Sometimes a person only knows they are having a TIA when friends or family tell them their smile is crooked because of sagging of one side of the face.

Usually, by the time a patient gets to a doctor, the symptoms have resolved and don’t require any specific treatment. Sometimes, aspirin is recommended to decrease future risk. 

There is new emphasis on post-TIA treatment and monitoring. In a major study of cardiovascular health over the past 70 years — the well-known Framingham Heart Study — of the people who experienced a TIA, nearly 30% had a subsequent stroke within nine years. The stroke risk for someone who had a TIA was four times the risk of those who had not suffered a TIA.

The increase in stroke risk was present even when accounting for confounding cardiovascular risk factors.

Although the study was confined to Caucasian people, it is felt that the stroke risk increase was greater for Black and Hispanic individuals.

A major factor in the stroke risk increase was a lack of blood pressure control. Higher blood pressure was clearly associated with subsequent strokes, leading an investigator to conclude that “patients with TIA represent a particularly high-risk group in need of vigorous surveillance beyond the early, high-risk period and with special attention to hypertension monitoring and treatment.”