An Indiana neurologist says confusion and gibberish in written language could be just as big of a sign of a stroke as it is in spoken language.

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A Boston family recently discovered a stroke victim in nonsensical text messages a husband was receiving from his wife.  IU School of Medicine Neurology professor Linda Williams says cognitive language confusion is a primary sign of stroke. She says while she hasn't witnessed any cases involving text messages, she has seen research on cases involving emails.

Dr. Williams says the a stroke can affect muscles involving speech, but it can also affect the brain's ability to form the words and sentences correctly, resulting in gibberish and nonsense. Williams says doctors are trained to ask about verbal language when assessing a potential stroke patient, but should probably start asking about written language issues as well when trying to establish a case history.