Symptoms of meningitis in children

Pediatric meningitis can cause serious harm to children, especially severe meningitis, which will have an impact on the child's life. Once the disease worsens or lesions occur, the harm and sequelae will be greater. Therefore, parents must understand the various common sense and clinical manifestations of pediatric meningitis, so that when problems are discovered, they can take timely measures to reduce damage.

1. Viral meningoencephalitis

Acute onset, or preceded by a cold or a prodromal infectious disease. The main symptoms are fever, nausea, vomiting, weakness and drowsiness. Older children may complain of headaches, while infants may become restless and irritable. Severe disturbances of consciousness and convulsions are generally rare. There may be signs of meningeal irritation such as neck stiffness. But there are no localized neurological signs. The course of the disease is usually within 1 to 2 weeks.

2. Viral encephalitis

The onset is acute, but its clinical manifestations vary depending on the location, extent, and severity of the main pathological changes in the brain parenchyma.

(1) Most children with diffuse brain lesions mainly present with fever, recurrent seizures, varying degrees of impaired consciousness, and increased intracranial pressure. Convulsions are mostly systemic, but they can also be focal, and in severe cases, they can present as a persistent state of convulsion. Children may have varying degrees of changes in consciousness, including drowsiness, lethargy, coma, deep coma, and even decorticate state. If irregular breathing rhythm or unequal pupils occur, the possibility of intracranial hypertension and brain herniation should be considered. Some children also have hemiplegia or limb paralysis.

(2) In some children, the lesions mainly affect the motor area of ​​the frontal cortex, and the main clinical manifestation is repeated seizures, with or without fever. Most of them are generalized or focal tonic-clonic or clonic seizures, and a few are myoclonic or tonic seizures. Status epilepticus may occur.

(3) If the brain lesions mainly affect the base of the frontal lobe and the temporal lobe limbic system, the patient will mainly show mental and emotional abnormalities, such as mania, hallucinations, aphasia, and orientation, calculation and memory disorders. With or without fever. Many viruses can cause such manifestations, but those caused by herpes simplex virus are the most serious. Inclusion bodies containing viral antigen particles are easily seen in the nerve cells of this virus encephalitis. This is called acute inclusion body encephalitis, which is often accompanied by convulsions and coma, and has a high mortality rate.

Others include those with hemiplegia, monoplegia, quadriplegia or various involuntary movements as the main manifestations. Many patients may have multiple types of symptoms mentioned above at the same time. Positive pathological signs appear when the lesion involves the pyramidal tract.

Parents certainly hope that their children can grow up healthy and strong. Especially when children are still in the growth stage, any disease will have a great impact on them. If active treatment and coping measures are not taken, the harm to them may be lifelong, so parents must pay attention to various health problems of their children.