This book is designed to improve the teaching and learning of stroke medicine in postgraduate educational programs. It is targeted at “beginning specialists”, either medical students with a deeper interest or medical doctors entering the field of specialized stroke care. Therefore the text contains what is considered essential for this readership but, in addition, goes into much greater depth, e.g. the coverage of less frequent causes of stroke, and describing the more technical facets and settings of modern stroke care.

The textbook leads the reader through the many causes of stroke, its typical manifestations, and the practical management of the stroke patient. We have tried to keep the clinical aspects to the fore, giving relative weight to those chapters that cover clinically important issues; however, the pathological, pathophysiological and anatomical background is included where necessary. The book benefits from the experience of many specialized authors, thereby providing expert coverage of the various topics by international authorities in the field. In places this leads to some differences of opinion in the approach to particular patients or conditions; as Editors we have tried not to interfere with the individual character of each chapter, leaving only duplicate presentations when they were handled from different topological or didactic aspects, e.g. on genetics or rarer forms of diseases.

The development of this textbook has been triggered by the “European Master in Stroke Medicine Programme” held at Danube University in Austria.