Meningitis - Causes, Types, Symptoms, Treatment, Consequences

2024 Author: Rachel Wainwright | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 07:39

Meningitis

What is meningitis and how is it dangerous?

Meningitis is an acute infectious disease that causes inflammation of the lining of the spinal cord and brain. Infection can be provoked by fungi, viruses and various bacteria, for example: Haemophilus influenzae, enteroviruses, meningococcal infection, tubercle bacilli. Signs of meningitis can occur at any age, but, as a rule, people with weakened immune systems, premature babies, patients with head injuries, back injuries and CNS lesions get sick.

With adequate and, most importantly, timely treatment of meningitis, human vital organs and systems usually do not suffer. An exception is the so-called reactive meningitis, the consequences of which are extremely severe. If the treatment of meningitis is not started on the first day after the onset of severe symptoms, the patient may become deaf or blind. Often, the disease leads to coma and even death. As a rule, the transferred meningitis in children and adults forms immunity to the action of pathogens, but there are exceptions. However, cases of repeated illness are extremely rare. According to experts, the infection occurs a second time only in 0.1% of people who have recovered.

What can be meningitis?

The disease is primary and secondary. The first type of infection is diagnosed if the meninges are immediately affected during infection. Secondary meningitis in adults and children manifests itself against the background of the underlying disease (leptospirosis, otitis media, mumps, etc.), develops slowly, but ultimately also leads to damage to the meninges.

The hallmark of both types of infection is the acute nature of the clinical course of the disease. The disease develops within a few days and requires immediate treatment to prevent serious complications. An exception to this rule is tuberculous meningitis, which may not manifest itself in any way for several weeks or even months.

What causes meningitis?

The main causative agent of the disease is meningococcal infection. In most cases, it is transmitted by airborne droplets. The source of infection is a sick person, and you can catch the infection anywhere, from public transport to polyclinics. In children's groups, the pathogen is capable of causing real epidemics of the disease. Note also that when a meningococcal infection enters the human body, purulent meningitis usually develops. We will discuss it in more detail in one of the following sections.

The second most common cause of the disease is various viruses. Most often, enterovirus infection leads to damage to the meninges of the brain, however, the disease can also develop in the presence of herpes virus, measles, mumps or rubella.

Other factors that provoke meningitis in children and adults include:

• boils on the neck or face;
• frontal;
• sinusitis;
• acute and chronic otitis media;
• lung abscess;
• osteomyelitis of the bones of the skull.

Reactive meningitis

Reactive meningitis is one of the most dangerous forms of infection. It is often called lightning fast because of the extremely transient clinical picture. If medical assistance was provided too late, the patient falls into a coma and dies from multiple purulent foci in the brain area. If doctors began to treat reactive meningitis within the first day, the consequences will not be so serious, but they can also threaten a person's life. Timely diagnosis, which is carried out by taking a lumbar puncture, is of great importance in reactive meningitis.

Purulent meningitis in adults and children

Purulent meningitis is characterized by the development of cerebral, general infectious and meningeal syndromes, as well as lesions of the central nervous system and inflammatory processes in the cerebrospinal fluid. In 90% of the reported cases, the causative agent of the disease was infection. If a child develops purulent meningitis, the symptoms at first resemble a common cold or flu, but after a few hours, patients have characteristic signs of meningeal infection:

• very severe headache;
• repeated vomiting;
• confusion of consciousness;
• the appearance of a rash;
• neck muscle tension
• strabismus;
• pain when trying to pull the head to the chest.

In addition to the above symptoms of meningitis, children also have some other signs: drowsiness, convulsions, diarrhea, pulsation of the large fontanelle.

Meningitis treatment

Patients with meningitis are subject to immediate hospitalization. Do not try to treat meningitis with folk remedies and do not postpone calling an ambulance at all, as jokes with an infection can easily end in disability or death.

Antibiotics are the drugs of choice for treating meningitis. It should be noted that in about 20% of cases, it is still not possible to identify the cause of the disease, therefore, broad-spectrum antibiotics are used in hospitals in order to affect all probable pathogens. The course of antibiotic therapy lasts at least 10 days. This period increases in the presence of purulent foci in the skull area.

Currently, meningitis in adults and children is treated with penicillin, ceftriaxone, and cefotaxime. If they do not give the expected effect, then the patients are prescribed vancomycin and carbapenems. They have serious side effects and are used only when there is a real risk of life-threatening complications.

If there is a severe course of meningitis, the patient is prescribed endolumbar administration of antibiotics, in which the drugs go directly into the spinal canal.

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The information is generalized and provided for informational purposes only. At the first sign of illness, see your doctor. Self-medication is hazardous to health!