Dystextia and dystypia as modern stroke symptoms: A case series and literature review

Abstract

Stroke recognition remains a barrier to care in cerebrovascular disease. Despite an increasing reliance on digital communication, the clinical utility of deficits relating to technology remains unexplored. Dystextia and dystypia, terms used to refer to impairments in texting and typing, respectively, may serve as modern indicators of stroke and provide information regarding stroke duration, symptomatology, and etiological diagnosis. In this report, we describe two cases in which dystextia and dystypia were involved in stroke presentation and perform a literature review surrounding these signs. Four out of six cases identified on literature review in which stroke etiology was described, in addition to both of our presented cases, were found to be embolic in origin. While shared lesion topography involving the left posterior upper insular cortex and superior longitudinal fasciculus was identified in our cases, additional research is required for proper symptom-lesion mapping. Further characterization of dystextia and dystypia, and their corresponding localization, may assist in stroke diagnosis and guide investigations.

Keywords: Dystextia; Dystypia; Insular cortex; Stroke; Transient ischemic attack.