FAST and BE-FAST Stroke Assessment
FAST and BE-FAST Stroke Assessment - a deterministic tool in Sophie Well's EMS & Field Medicine group.
Open the FAST and BE-FAST Stroke Assessment → Runs in your browser. No signup, no tracking.
What this is
Apply the FAST and BE-FAST stroke screens. FAST checks four items - Face (droop), Arm (drift), Speech (slurred or absent), Time (note onset; treat as emergency) - and is the most widely taught public-facing stroke recognition tool. BE-FAST adds two posterior-circulation items in front of the FAST core: Balance (sudden loss) and Eyes (sudden vision loss or double vision). Sophie Well walks through both, prompting the rescuer once per item and reporting the screen result and the time-of-onset stamp the receiving facility needs.
When to use it
Use this when a bystander, first-responder, or ED triage nurse encounters a patient with sudden neurologic symptoms. FAST is the public-education baseline; BE-FAST catches a meaningful fraction of posterior-circulation strokes that FAST misses - vestibular and visual presentations - and is the screen most stroke centers now teach for prehospital and ED triage. Time of onset is the single most important data point for the receiving stroke team because it gates IV thrombolysis and large-vessel intervention windows; if the exact time is unknown, document "last known well."
References
Kleindorfer DO, et al. Designing a message for public stroke education using the FAST mnemonic. Stroke. 2007;38(10):2864-2868. BE-FAST: Aroor S, Singh R, Goldstein LB. BE-FAST: reducing the proportion of strokes missed using the FAST mnemonic. Stroke. 2017;48(2):479-481.
Worked example: FAST: POSITIVE
Sophie Well is a reference and educational tool. Not medical, legal, or financial advice. Does not replace clinician judgment, professional billing review, or legal counsel.