When it comes to treating a stroke, time is critical. In most cases, strokes should be treated within a window of less than four and a half hours from when symptoms start; and getting treated within the first hour leads to better outcomes. But what happens when someone wakes up with stroke symptoms and they are unable to pinpoint when they began? These strokes that happen during sleep are known as wake-up strokes and account for approximately one in five acute ischemic strokes, studies show.
People who experience overnight strokes will wake up with signs, such as a droopy face, change in speech, loss of vision and coordination, and weakness or numbness on one side. “Most of our treatments for stroke are based off on a timeframe of 4.5 hours from when someone had a stroke,” says Dr. Baxter Allen, a neurocritical care specialist and attending neurologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian Queens. “The problem with wake-up strokes is that patients are not able to determine how long ago the stroke happened. We have protocols in place for these types of strokes, but it’s important for patients to seek emergency care as soon as possible.”
