cerebellar

Question 1

what are the symptoms of a cerebellar stroke- DANISH?

Answer 1

• Dysdiadochokinesia (an inability to perform rapid alternating hand movements)
• Ataxia (a broad-based, unsteady gait)
• Nystagmus (involuntary eye movements)
• Intention tremor (seen when the patient is asked to perform the ‘finger-nose test’)
• Slurred speech
• Hypotonia

Question 2

what are the causes of cerebellar syndrome?

Answer 2

Vascular causes include stroke (ischaemic or haemorrhagic affecting the posterior circulation).
Infective causes include Lyme disease.
Inflammatory causes include multiple sclerosis.
Traumatic causes include trauma to the posterior fossa.
Metabolic causes include alcoholism.
Iatrogenic causes include drugs such as phenytoin and carbamazepine.
Neoplastic causes include primary tumours (e.g. cerebellopontine angle tumour, acoustic neuroma) and secondary tumours (metastases e.g. breast cancer, lung cancer).
Congenital/hereditary causes include Friedrich’s ataxia, and the spinocerebellar ataxias.