Harmon Moats is a stroke educator for New York Presbyterian's Neurological Institute. He is trying to find successful ways to educate people in Northern Manhattan about stroke symptoms, signs and responses.

Q: What are some of the symptoms of stroke?

• A weakness or a paralysis on one side of the body. It can affect your face, your arm, your leg, and sometimes it affects the entire side of your body at one time which is a classic sign of stroke.
• Speech Problems. It could be something like slurred speech or not being able to speak. Sometimes, you have trouble finding words-you know what you want to say you just can't express it.
• Blurred vision. Anything from blurred vision to complete blindness could be a symptom of stroke.
• A falling to one side. This can be an imbalance, a stumble, or a leaning to one side.
• Facial drooping.  This sometimes occurs-the eyes sag and the mouth will droop.
• The tongue will droop out of one side of the mouth. This is why a lot of times a doctor will ask the patient to stick their tongue out.
• An extreme headache. This is not a normal headache. This is the worst possible headache that you could possibly ever imagine. That's how we describe it: the worst headache of your life.
• Nausea. This is one of the general symptoms that could be twenty other things. When we tell people about nausea we tell them to be careful and aware. If your nausea doesn't seem to go away you should go see the doctor. One of the ways you might know if nausea is stroke-related is by judging how fast it came on. With nausea, usually you don't feel well for a while, then you feel nauseous and then you throw up. When nausea is a symptom of stroke you go from feeling fine to being sick quickly-there's no delay.
•  Fatigue. Extreme or "depressive" fatigue-meaning you don't feel like doing anything and it takes energy just to sit down.

Q: Is there anything else that people should look for to know if they're having a stroke?

A: Those are the main symptoms. The thing that these signs have in common is that they are sudden. But there are certain symptoms like a weakness or paralysis on one side of the body, which is extremely unusual, that is a telling sign of stroke regardless of whether it happens gradually or suddenly. If you can't pick your arm off of the table then you know that there's something dreadfully wrong.

For something that's more general like blurred vision, headaches or dizziness, which may be fairly common in daily life, it is extremely important to look at how it came on. Was it sudden? Did it come without warning? These are ways to tell if it's something out of the ordinary and could be a stroke.

The swift, rapid, sudden occurrence of symptoms is usually the fist sign. We tell people that if your headache gradually came on, it's very unlikely that it's a stroke.