[Idiopathic orthostatic hypotension: Shy-Drager's syndrome (author's transl)]

The authors report a clinical case of idiopathic orthostatic hypotension with associated signs of focal cerebrovascular lesion. They discuss aetiopathologic hypotheses which have been proposed to interpret pathological situations of this type. It seems reasonable to attribute an autonomous disease classification to idiopathic orthostatic hypotension as a systemic degenerative disease concerning peripheral and central structures with vegetative functions. The Shy-Drager syndrome (idiopathic orthostatic hypotension associated with diverse signs of involvement of the central nervous system) must not, however, be considered as an independent form of disease. The associated signs are none other than the expression of commonly found cerebral ischemic lesions deriving from abrupt arterial hypotension, or from cerebral dysautoregulation; or the expression of the association of a systemic degenerative disease with another, a not infrequent occurrence well known in the pathology of the nervous system.