A 49-year-old right-handed woman, a high school math teacher, without known vascular risk factors, had sudden onset of speech difficulties and headaches.

Our patient had a master’s degree in math education. She had no prior history of heart disease, arterial hypertension, diabetes, dys-lipidemia, or cigarette smoking. She had a history of two previous miscarriages. While skiing, she suddenly became disoriented and could not remember her daughter’s friend’s name. She was diagnosed with an acute ischemic stroke involving the left posterior temporal region.

She then complained of residual confusion when writing or spelling and often hunting for words particularly with multisyllabic words. She also made mistakes while reading aloud and had difficulty following conversations. She suspected her memory was reasonably clear for recent details, events, and conversations. She doubted having new problems with mathematics, but she did have trouble remembering phone numbers and quickly transcribing them. She was very much concerned about her ability to return to work as a teacher, given the state of her language deficits.