If a patient has a stroke involving the basilar artery, what clinical sign is expected?

In a stroke involving the basilar artery, one of the clinical signs that can be expected is diplopia, which refers to double vision. The basilar artery supplies blood to the brainstem and areas that control eye movements. A stroke in this region can disrupt the normal function of cranial nerves responsible for coordinating eye movements, leading to difficulties in aligning the eyes properly. As such, patients may experience diplopia as a prominent symptom.

While other signs such as quadriplegia, apraxia, and global aphasia may also occur depending on the extent and specific location of the strokes, they are more often associated with different types of strokes or specific areas of the brain. Quadriplegia typically arises from lesions affecting the upper motor neurons in the corticospinal tract, which may be impacted in large strokes, but is not a direct consequence of all basilar artery strokes. Apraxia, which involves the inability to perform tasks or movements, is more commonly linked to lesions in the parietal or frontal lobes than to the brainstem region affected by basilar artery strokes. Global aphasia is associated with damage to the language centers of the brain, typically in the left hemisphere, rather than the brainstem areas supplied by the bas