Atrial Fibrillation in Neurologists Domain

4 th international epilepsy symposium in Pula – how to start seizure treatment Disorders of circulation in the brain caused by a reduced or complete interruption of blood fl ow in certain irrigation area, have resulted in " outage of some function " of the brain, depending on localization of disorder. If that outage lasts for a shorter period of time-up to 1 hour, we are talking about transient ischemic attacks, and if a neurological defi cit lasts longer than an hour, we are talking about stroke with thrombotic or embolic genesis. Stroke is despite diagnostic and therapeutic advances in medicine, the third leading cause of mortality in the world (after cardiovascular and malignant diseases), the second leading cause of disability (after trauma) and also the second leading cause of demen-tia. Previously there was the understanding that stroke is a disease of older age, today is the fact that 46% of stroke patients are aged 45-59 years. Th e leading risk factor for stroke is hypertension followed by smoking, heart disease and cardiac rhythm disturbances, especially atrial fi brillation, followed by diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, stress, physical inactivity, obesity, unhealthy diet... Atrial fi brillation with other cardiac rhythm disturbances is the cause for the occurrence of stroke in 20-25% of cases, and is much more common cause of TIA in both the front and rear brain circulation. Th e most frequently cardiac rhythm disturbances are the result of arteriosclerotic change of the heart and blood vessels, but atrial fi brillation can occur in the endo-crine metabolic disorders, mostly hyperthyroidism. At the Neurology Clinic in Sarajevo, we explored the correlation of atrial fi brillation in cases of TIA and ischemic stroke, and came to the conclusion that in cases of ischemic stroke, atrial fi brillation was present as the cause in 20%, and in TIA cases in as many as 27%. CONCLUSION-Atrial fi brillation has a significant place in the etiology of TIA, the anterior and posterior brain circulation, but also of defi nite isch-emic stroke. Duly detection of atrial fi brillation and its treatment it is possible to prevent the occurrence of defi nite stroke, at least in part.