[A case of cerebellar infarction with pure dysarthria]

We report a 69-year-old man with pure ataxic speech. He was admitted to the surgical ward of our hospital because of exercise-induced pain in the right arm. He underwent angiography of the right arm, and was discharged the next day. When he returned home, he exhibited an acute-onset dysarthria. He was admitted to our neurology ward the next day because the dysarthria did not improve. On admission, neurological examinations revealed moderately ataxic speech, but other neurological findings were within normal limits. Cranial MRI revealed an infarct localized from the lobulus simplex to the lobulus quadrangularis in the right cerebellum. Three cases of pure dysarthria due to cerebellar infarction have been reported previously. We compared cerebellar lesions in the 4 cases of pure dysarthria due to cerebellar infarction. Since the lobulus simplex of the upper cerebellar hemisphere was involved in all 4 cases, we speculated that ataxic speech occurred from the impairment of this cerebellar area.