Stroke Rehabilitation for Nothnagel Syndrome : A Case Report

Abstract

We report a case of Nothnagel syndrome with inattention. A 69-year-old laborer was admitted to our hospital for rehabilitation therapy complaining of gait disturbance a month after the onset of brainstem infarction. He had right oculomotor palsy, ataxia on the left side and upward movement limitation of the left eye. Magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated high signal intensity in the right tegmentum of the midbrain and the medial aspect of the right thalamus on T2-weighted and diffusion weighted images. This lesion involving nuclei in the medial aspect of the right thalamus, which is considered to be closely related with the reticular activating system, might explain his inattention. And it is suggested that the low blood flow in the right basal ganglia and parietal lobe revealed by his SPECT scan, could be related with that as well. We administered rehabilitation programs for his ataxia and inattention. Because diplopia is thought to be difficult to improve, we did not attempt to treat the patient's eye movement limitation. Three months after our intervention, he was able to walk without support. However, his inattention remained. Patients with brainstem infarction are apt to have plural impairments concurrently. In such cases, it is necessary to assess the treatment priority for each impairment adequately. Evidence based guidelines for the assessment of treatment priority would aid in this endeavor and the development of such guidelines is therefore expected.