[Myasthenia gravis and elderly persons. A case study]
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Published on: July 5, 2017
A Saraux-Bonneton1, B Raffin, F Vautier
1Service de gériatrie, hôpital Vaugirard-Gabriel-Pailez, 10, rue Vaugelas, 75015 Paris, France. js.bonneton@wanadoo.fr
Introduction:
Myasthenia gravis is an uncommon autoimmune disease which affects all ages. There are late-onset occurrences whose diagnosis is not considered often enough in geriatrics.
Exegesis:
We report a case of late-onset myasthenia gravis with a 78-year-old woman who was multi-pathologic and hospitalized for a diplopia check-up and recurrent falls. These stress the difficulty of suggesting myasthenia gravis in geriatrics due to the number of differential diagnoses that can mislead the physician. For the elderly subject, the diagnostic methodology is close to that of the younger subject. The search for related diseases must be systematic.
Conclusion:
Late-onset myasthenia gravis must remain a diagnosis present in the mind of the physician because of the significant improvement of the functional prognosis after the start of the treatment. The majority of subjects will recover a normal life.
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