Conditions Flashcards
Acalculia
Disturbances in calculation
Acalculia associated with alexia and agraphia for numbers
- Most often associated with left hemisphere disease, but does not rule out right hemisphere involvement
- Alexia for arithmetic signs w/ preserved reading of numbers often associated with left parietal or temporal-occipital regions
- Associated features:
- aphasia
- verbal alexia
- ideational and ideomotor apraxia
- constructional deficits
- somatognosia
Acute Subdural Hematoma
To occur immediately after injury, the impact velocity must be quite high.
Therefore, this is usually associated with other serious injuries, such as traumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage and brain contusion.
Treatment:
- Surgical evacuation
- Small to moderate-sized chronic - depending on severity of symptoms, just follow clinically b/c some will resolve spontaneously
Acalculia of the Spatial Type
- Misalignment of numbers
- Reversal of digits
- Inversion of digits (e.g., 6 for 9)
- Reversal errors (e.g., 12 for 21)
- Actual calculation is largely preserved
- Generally associated with more visual-constructive impairment
- Right hemisphere (post-rolandic) is implicated; rare in pts with lesions confined to left hemisphere
Agnosia
- From Greek word “gnosis” or knowledge, so it means the absence of knowledge
- A disorder of recognition; inability to recognize the meaning of info conveyed w/i a sensory system from external environment to the brain
- Crucial feature: exists only in a singular sensory modality
- Not attributable to:
- Elemetary sensory deficits
- Mental deterioration
- Non-familiarity
- Aphasic misnaming
- Impaired conciousness or attention
Alexia
An acquired deficit in the ability to interpret written language (loss of the ability to read)
Alexia - localization
Disconnection between visual cortex and Wernicke’s area
Anarithmetria
- Deficits in performing the calculation itself (aka, primary acalculia)
- Left sided temporal or occipital lobe lesions. Does not appear to be caused by right hemisphere unless parietal lobe is involved
- Associated with:
- aphasia
- visuoconstructive deficits
- general cognitive deterioration
- verbal alexia
- directional confusion
- visual field deficit
- oculomotor disturbance
- sensory impairment
Anterior Alexia (Frontal Alexia)
More recently discovered so also known as the “Third Alexia” Basic clinical features: - Great difficulty naming individual letters of alphabet but can recognize some written words - Severe agraphia; ability to copy written language poor - Comprehend some spelled words, but poor at spelling aloud - Recognize some semantically meaningful words but fail to comprehend the grammatically significant function words – Agrammatism of written language Accompanying neuro findings: - Right hemiplegia - Nonfluent aphasia - May include unitlateral sensory and/or visual-field neglect Pathology is typically left frontal area Other common names: literal alexia, letter blindness
Apperceptive Agnosia
- Damage fairly early on in recognition assembly line, before perception is properly constructed
- Pts do not perceive objects normally so cannot recognize them
Apraxia
Inability to make sequences of movements
Apraxia - localization
Disconnection between motor and sensory areas
Argyll Robertson Pupils
- Bilateral small pupils that reduce in size when the patient focuses on a near object (accomodate)
- Do not constrict when exposed to bright light
Arteriovenous malformation (AVM)
- Congenital abnormality
- Abnormal direct connections b/t arteries and veins
- Often form a tangle of abnormal blood vessels, best seen on conventional angiography
Assessment of Acalculia
These should be done orally and in written format:
- Appreciation of number values: greater than/less than (e.g., which is greater? 23 or 31?)
- Appreciation of values in written format. Point to the larger number.
- Reading numbers aloud
- Pointing to written numbers read aloud by the examiner
- Writing numbers to dictation
- Copying numbers
- Counting aloud
- Estimating numbers of items in a series of continuous vs discontinuous dots
- Oral arithmetic
- Written arithmetic
- Arithmetic reasoning (WAIS Arithmetic)
- Immediate memory for calculation problems
Qualitatively, look for specific types of errors:
- Substitution of one operation for another (e.g., 2+3=6, substituting multiplication for addition)
- Counting for calculation (e.g., 4+7=8)
- Perseveration of last digit presented (e.g., 4x5=24)
- Giving a reversal of number presented as answer (e.g., 13+6=31)
- Impaired immediate retention of components of problems
Associative Agnosia
- Fault in later stages of recognition
- Perception may be okay, but access to meaning or memory is not
- “A normal percept stripped of it’s meaning”
- Can successfully copy, but not identify
Astrocytoma
- brain cancer arising from glial cells, star-like neurons, aka astrocytes
AVM Symptoms
- Seizures
- Migraine-like headaches
- Hemorrhage is usually intraparenchymal, but can extend to intraventricular or subarachnoid space
Bacterial Meningitis
CSF findings:
- High white blood cell count
- High protein
- Low glucose
Treatment:
- Begin as rapidly as possible
- Do not wait for transport or diagnostic test results
Possible complications of:
- Seizures
- Cranial neuropathies
- Cerebral edema
- Hydropcephalus
- Herniation
- Cerebral infarcts
- Death
Cavernous Malformation
- Abnormally dilated vascular cavities lined by only one layer of vascular endothelium
- Not visible on conventional angiography
- Often presents with seizure
- Risk of bleed 0.1-2.7% per lesion year; increases after initial bleed occurs
Brain Abscess
Presents as an expanding intracranial mass lesion, much like a brain tumor, but often with a more rapid course.
Common presenting features:
- Headache
- Lethargy
- Fever (absent in 40% of cases)
- Nuchal rigidity
- Nausea/vomiting
- Seizures
- Focal signs related to site of lesion
- Elevated white blood cell count (absent in 20% of cases)
Treatment:
- Abscess < 2.5 cm in diameter - antibiotics
- Abscess > 2.5 cm in diameter - steriotactic needle aspiration + antibiotics
Central Alexia (Alexia w/ Agraphia)
Basic clinical features: - severe (not necessarily total) disturbance of both reading and writing - preserved ability to copy written language, but in slavish and non-comprehended manner - loss of ability to name letters, to comprehend spelled words, or to read out loud Often accompanied by other neurobehavioral disorders including: - aphasia - components of Gerstmann Syndrome (finger agnosia, right-left confusion, acalculia, and agraphia) - some degree of hemisensory loss and/or right homonymous visual field defict Locus of pathology includes inferior parietal lobe of language dominant hemisphere, centering on angular gyrus; typically damage to both cortex and white matter Causes most often from occlusion of MCA or distal branches (inferior parietal lobe); may also be caused by neoplastic lesions Other common names: semantic alexia, parieto-temporal alexia, total (literal and verbal) alexia, letter and word blindness, surface alexia
Central Herniation
- Central, downward displacement of the brainstem
- Caused by any lesion associated with elevated intracranial pressure (including hydrocephalus & diffuse cerebral edema)
- Mild herniation:
1. Causes traction on abducens nerve (CN VI) - producing lateral rectus palsey (inability for outward movement of the eye)
2. May be unilateral or bilateral - Large herniation:
1. Herniation through the tnetorial opening, resulting in bilateral uncal herniation - Severe herniation:
1. Can progress downward through the foramen magnum
Chronic Subdural Hematoma
Often seen in the elderly, where atrophy allows the brain to move more freely, making bridging veins more susceptible to shear injury.
May be seen with little to no history of trauma
Oozing slowly, venous blood collects over weeks to months, allowing the brain to accommodate, causing vague symptoms:
- Headache
- Cognitive impairment
- Unsteady gait
Focal dysfunction of the underlying cortex may result in focal neurological deficits
Communicating Hydrocephalus
- Impaired CSF reabsorption in the arachnoid granulations, obstruction of flow in the subarachnoid space, or by excess CSF production
Concussion
- Reversible impairment of neurologic function for minutes to hours following head injury
- Mechanism - unknown (might be transient diffuse neuronal dysfx)
- CT & MRI - normal
- Clinical features:
- LOC
- “seeing stars”
- headache
- dizziness
- nausea
- vomiting
- occasional anterograde and retrograde amnesia for several hours around the injury
- Recovery is usually complete
Epidural Abscess
In the spinal canal and requires prompt diagnosis and tx to prevent:
- Spinal cord compression
- Paraparesis
- Urinary/fecal incontinence
Common presenting features:
- Back pain
- Fever
- Elevated peripheral white blood cell count
- Headache
- Sign of nerve root or spinal cord compression
Treatment:
- Surgical drainage
- Antibiotics (can be used alone in early cases without progressive deterioration)
Epidural Hematoma
Location: B/t dura and skull
Usual cause: rupture of the middle meningeal artery due to fx of temporal bone by head trauma
Clincial features:
- Hematoma, pulls dura away from inner surface of the skull
- Often does not spread past cranial sutures where the dura is tightly apposed to skull
- No sx initially, but within few hours hematoma begins to press on brain tissue
External Ventricular Drain (Ventriculostomy)
- when fluid from the lateral ventricles is drained into a bag outside of the head
General Paresis
Accumulation of lesions associated with meningovascular syphilis, causes:
- Dementia
- Behavioral changes
- Delusions of grandeur
- Psychosis
- Difffuse upper-motor neuron (originate in the motor region of the cerebral cortex or brain stem) type weakness
Gertsmann’s Syndrome
- Agraphia
- Finger agnosia
- Left/right disorientation
- Acalculia - not associated with any specific type of acalculia