History of transient ischemic attack definition.

Transient ischemic attacks have been recognized as a clinical entity for well over a century. Efforts before the availability of modern imaging to establish a diagnosis of inferred ischemic stroke led to acceptance of too long a time period (>24 h) compared with the actual typical events lasting <24 min (usually 5-15 min). Revision of the time period has improved diagnostic yield and discovered many whose image-documented acute infarct is associated with a short clinical course.