Transient ischemic attack and cognition

Published on April 28, 2021   25 min

A selection of talks on Neuroscience

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0:00
My name is Jennifer Mandzia. I'm an assistant professor from Western University, the Department of Clinical Neurosciences in London, and the Co-medical Director of the Stroke Program here at London Health Sciences and in Southwestern Ontario Stroke Network in Canada. Today I'm going to be talking about transient ischemic attack and cognition.
0:25
The objectives today, I am going to start by defining what is a transient ischemic attack. Then I'm going to discuss the relationship between cerebrovascular disease and cognition. Then I will be discussing how cognition is affected in patients who have had a transient ischemic attack. Then last, discussing the factors that can influence and mediate cognitive dysfunction in TIA.
0:55
So what is a TIA? A transient ischemic attack was traditionally defined, and somewhat arbitrary, as a focal cerebral ischemic event of the brain or the retina with symptoms lasting less than 24 hours. When I say arbitrary, the duration was defined quite arbitrarily as less than 24 hours. However, in 2009, a new definition of TIA was proposed to improve upon the traditional definition, especially pertaining to the duration of TIAs, which typically last between 10 minutes to one hour in duration. So the new definition proposed was a transient episode of neurological dysfunction, caused by focal brain or spinal cord or retinal ischemia without an acute infarction seen on imaging.