(Radio Iowa) -May is Stroke Awareness Month in Iowa, as people are urged to learn about the dangers of what’s now the state’s seventh-leading cause of death. Mark Mintun, a physician’s assistant at Van Diest Medical Center in Webster City, says a stroke is essentially a brain attack. “Everybody understands, for the most part, what a heart attack is,” Mintun says, “so if you think about a stroke as a heart attack but in the brain, maybe that would be an easier way to look at it.”

Mintun says there are basically two types of stroke.  “There’s one that’s a caused by a clot, which is like what you have with a heart attack,” Mintun says. “There’s another less common form called a hemorrhagic stroke, which is when you rupture a small artery in your head, and you have a stroke because all the brain tissue surrounding that area can’t get fed because of the blood that has leaked out into the brain.”

There are a few key symptoms or warning signs that a person may have suffered a stroke, and one way to remember them all as with the word FAST. “Face, Arm, Speech and Time,” Mintun says. “Face, if you have facial droop. Arm, if you have one-sided weakness, like you can’t lift your arm or your arm’s not functioning properly. Speech, if you’re having trouble speaking. And then Time. Naturally, if that happens, if you see any of those symptoms, get to the emergency department right away because time is important.”

The Iowa Department of Public Health reports 1,390 Iowans died of stroke in 2020.