How serious are the effects of meningitis in children?

Meningitis is a serious disease caused by an infection leading to inflammation of the meninges. Because of the imperfection of the immune system, this disease is more likely to affect children.

According to the research of scientists, one in three of the children who have suffered this disease subsequently has mental disorders, learning problems or has epilepsy, and one in five has increased anxiety or behavioral disorders.

Consequences of meningitis in children (viral or serous meningitis)

Viral meningitis is more common than bacterial, and although it rarely threatens life, recovery from illness can be slow, and its consequences are long-term, sometimes only during puberty.

Typically, they include headache, memory impairment, fatigue, anxiety, depression, dizziness and coordination problems. In some children, serous meningitis can provoke an increase in the amount of CSF, which in turn can lead to hydrocephalus, hearing loss and impaired vision.

Consequences of meningitis in children (bacterial meningitis)

Most often, the most serious complications occur in the field of bacterial disease. About 15% of people who suffered it, remain with problems that require constant medical support. This can be a loss of hearing, as well as worsening or complete loss of vision associated with damage to the optic nerve.

Dangerous complications are brain problems that can cause epilepsy and cerebral palsy. By the way, about what consequences after a meningitis are available at the patient, sometimes it is possible to judge not at once, but only in months or even years after the transferred or carried disease.

Equally serious are the emerging learning difficulties associated with this disease. Fortunately, they are usually short-term and recover over time. But aggression, diligence, sleep disorders, difficulty concentrating and a tendency to hysterics can stay with the child for a long time.

Purulent meningitis in children: consequences

A variety of bacterial meningitis, purulent, is the most severe form of the disease. It can end with a fatal outcome. But more often it is persistent paralysis or unilateral paresis of the face and limbs, cerebral infarction, encephalitis, and also dropsy of the brain (hydrocephalus).

No less serious are organic brain damage, in which it can disappear, for example, the centers of hunger or thirst. This forces the patient to live strictly on schedule, controlling himself constantly.

Common consequences of meningitis in children

Meningitis is a disease affecting a complexly arranged important organ that controls the processes that take place in our body - the brain. Children who have undergone it in mild form and without complications, still suffer from migraines or occasional hormonal failures.

Even if the expressed consequences of meningitis in children are absent, they have to stand for another two years on dispensary registration and regularly undergo examinations with a neurologist, infectious disease specialist and pediatrician. Only if the residual effects of the disease have not been found, the child is considered to be recovered.