Benign posttraumatic encephalopathy

Twenty-eight post-injury states were assessed in 27 children (in one child two attacks occurred) aged 1-9 years. The states could be classed as so called benign posttraumatic encephalopathy. The mild head injury was followed after a latent period (proved in 22 attacks) of 5 min. to 14 hours by transient brain disorder (in 17 cases quantitative, qualitative and combined alteration in consciousness, in 7 children cortical blindness, in 2 epileptic seizure and in two brain stem disturbance). The duration of symptoms lasted 5 minutes to 48 hours. After recovery the children had no difficulties; the mean of follow-up was 3.3 years. The EEG showed predominantly a normal picture or only abnormal background activity of bioccipital slow waves. In the history and clinical picture we found after the attack most often perinatal abnormality and minimal brain dysfunction (15x, 57%) and various forms of migraine (4x, 16%). It indicates that in the pathogenesis of benign posttraumatic encephalopathy apparently an important part is played by pretraumatic cerebral affection.