Symptoms:

• Weakness or total inability to move a body part
• Numbness, loss of sensation
• Tingling or other abnormal sensations
• Decreased or lost vision (may be partial or temporary)
• Language difficulties (aphasia)
• Inability to recognize or identify sensory stimuli (agnosia)
• Loss of memory
• Loss of coordination
• Swallowing difficulties
• Personality changes
• Mood and emotion changes
• Urinary incontinence (lack of control over bladder)
• Lack of control over the bowels
• Consciousness changes:
  • Sleepiness
  • Stupor, lethargy
  • Coma, unconsciousness

Signs and tests:

An exam may show:

• Blood clots in the retina  
• Reflex problems
• Muscle weakness
• Decreased sensation
• A bruit (an abnormal sound heard with the stethoscope) over the carotid arteries of the neck

The following tests may be done:

• Serum lipids blood test (may show high levels of  triglycerides and cholesterol)
• Carotid or cerebral angiography
• Carotid duplex or Doppler ultrasound
• MRI of the head
• MRA (magnetic resonance angiography) of the brain vessels and neck vessels