Acute onset quadriplegia

BMJ Case Rep. 2012 Jul 10:2012:bcr0720114472. doi: 10.1136/bcr.07.2011.4472.

Abstract

A 50-year-old man, with history of chronic alcohol intake was brought in a stuporous state to the emergency services having been found in that condition in his home the same day. Examination revealed the patient in an akinteic mute state with apparently normal cranial nerves, hypotonia and quadriplegia with bilateral extensor plantar reflex. CT scan and MRI of the brain revealed bilateral infarct parasagittally with normal Magnetic resonance venogram suggestive of bilateral anterior cerebral artery infarct. Follow-up magnetic resonance angiogram revealed an azygous anterior cerebral artery thus proving an infarct of unpaired anterior cerebral artery infarct as the cause for quadriplegia in this patient.

Publication types

  • Case Reports

MeSH terms

  • Acute Disease
  • Brain / diagnostic imaging
  • Brain / pathology
  • Diagnosis, Differential
  • Humans
  • Infarction, Anterior Cerebral Artery / complications*
  • Infarction, Anterior Cerebral Artery / diagnosis
  • Magnetic Resonance Angiography
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Quadriplegia / diagnosis
  • Quadriplegia / etiology*
  • Tomography, X-Ray Computed