Meningococcal Meningitis Presenting As Acute Cerebellar Ataxia

Acute cerebellar ataxia is a well-described, benign syndrome characterized by an acute dramatic onset of truncal ataxia, hypotonia, nystagmus, intention tremor, irritability and vomiting. The patients, generally under 5 years of age, usually have a preceding viral infection and undergo spontaneous cure without specific treatment within weeks or months of the onset. They remain afebrile and the cerebrospinal fluid shows only a mild pleocytosis and protein elevation later in the course of the disease.1-4 Although purulent meningitis can present with a wide variety of central nervous system manifestations, there have been no reports of bacterial meningitis manifesting as cerebellar ataxia until recently. This report will describe such a case.