Jumbled Text Messages Could Be Indicative Of A Stroke

We’ve all seen funny screen captures where the autocorrect function of our smartphones results in rather embarrassing and unintended messages, but at the same time it looks like maybe the next time you receive a jumbled text message, there is a slight chance that this could be indicative that the sender could be having a stroke. According to a report, a man in Boston received a couple of text messages from his wife where he could not understand what she was trying to say.

Since he knew that her autocorrect function was disabled, he somehow sensed that something was wrong and rushed her to the emergency room where symptoms of confusion, poor motor skills and an MRI diagnosis confirmed that she was having a stroke.

If you thought that maybe the man got lucky in detecting his wife’s stroke, you’re right but it seems that the ability to detect neurological diseases through digital records is becoming increasingly important. Three Harvard Medical School doctors have even coined a word for the condition called “dystextia”, claiming that “the growing digital record will likely become an increasingly important means of identifying neurologic disease, particularly in patient populations that rely more heavily on written rather than spoken communication.”

However before you start dialing emergency numbers the next time you receive a jumbled text message, it has been pointed out that relying on dystextia alone to detect strokes would create a ton of false positives, and that other factors should be taken into consideration, such as whether the person has had a stroke before, or whether such symptoms have been diagnosed by a doctor before.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Medical