Incoherent text messages ‘could be a sign of stroke’

Scientists in the US have found that garbled text messages could be a sign that someone is suffering from a certain deadly type of stroke.

A case study at the Henry Ford Hospital involving a 40-year-old man from Detroit has revealed that sufferers of acute ischaemic stroke can sometimes experience "dystextia" – an inability to write coherent texts, or recognise the errors when reading the message back.

The patient in question had no problem with a routine bedside test of his language abilities and showed only a slight weakness in the right side of his face, but proved unable to type out a text message on command.

This shows how dystextia can sometimes be the only symptom of stroke-related aphasia – an inability to form or understand language – highlighting its usefulness as a diagnostic factor.

Lead author Dr Omran Kaskar, a neurologist at Henry Ford Hospital, said: "Because text messages are always time-stamped when they're sent, they may also help establish when the stroke symptoms were at least present or even when they began."

More than 150,000 people suffer a stroke in England each year, making it the third largest cause of death in the country.