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Washington University Experience | METABOLIC | Wernicke Encephalopathy | 14A0 Case 14 History
Case 14 History ---- This is the case of a 69 year old man with chronic GI bleeding due to multiple polyps which were removed. He carried the diagnosis of an organic brain syndrome for more than 10 years. He had a prior history of heavy alcohol intake but had moderated his ingestion since then. He had a history of unsteadiness and a tendency to fall to the left which was accompanied by truncal ataxia, nystagmus and multiple cranial palsies. A working diagnosis of dementia and brainstem disease was made. Later he developed seizure activity with subsequent coma and died soon thereafter. ---- At autopsy the patient had markedly shrunken mammillary bodies. A thrombosis of the basilar and posterior cerebral arteries resulting in infarction of the pons, cerebellum and occipital lobes was also found.
