More of your questions

Q. What are the symptoms following a stroke known as amyloid angiopathy?

The symptoms are the same as any other stroke - so can be varied. Amyloid is a protein which gets deposited in the walls of arteries in the brain, particularly in the elderly.

The arteries become brittle and may burst causing a brain haemorrhage which is one form of stroke. As well as loss of power on one side of the body, or speech, there may be severe headache and vomiting (as in haemorrhage from other causes).

Unfortunately over time a patient may suffer more than one haemorrhage in different areas. They are usually near the surface of the brain, rather than deep in the brain as is the case when the cause is high blood pressure.

The damaged arteries may also become blocked and cause an ischaemic stroke - that is where the blood supply is reduced to an area of brain, causing damage that way, and also producing weakness or speech disturbance (or many other symptoms - dizziness with difficulty swallowing, speaking, double vision and so on).

Sometimes the symptoms are more subtle and come on gradually, like dementia with reduced powers of thought (memory, self-care).

However although Alzheimer's disease is also partly due to amyloid protein, the conditions are quite distinct. In Alzheimer's dementia the amyloid is not in the blood vessel walls but in the cells of the brain itself.