I can't hear you, you said I had what?: A case report and literature review

We report the case of a 46-year old African American woman who presented to the emergency department with one week of progressive bilateral deafness associated with worsening gait abnormalities, visual changes, and confusion. She was diagnosed with Wernicke encephalopathy (WE) attributed to alcohol...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of community hospital internal medicine perspectives 2020-09, Vol.10 (5), p.443-445
Main Authors: Morgan, Zackquill J, Cler, Leslie, Hunter, Leigh
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abnormalities
Abuse
Alcohol
Alcohol abuse
Ataxia
Case Report
Case reports
Deafness
Drug abuse
Emergency medical care
encephalopathy
Gait
Gastric bypass
Hearing loss
Hearing protection
Literature reviews
Ophthalmoplegia
review
Thiamine
wernicke
wernicke encephalopathy
Wernicke's encephalopathy
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Summary:We report the case of a 46-year old African American woman who presented to the emergency department with one week of progressive bilateral deafness associated with worsening gait abnormalities, visual changes, and confusion. She was diagnosed with Wernicke encephalopathy (WE) attributed to alcohol abuse; her symptoms, including hearing loss, improved with thiamine replacement. WE, a condition due to thiamine deficiency, commonly affects those with alcohol use disorder or gastric bypass history. Though traditionally associated with a triad of encephalopathy, ophthalmoplegia, and ataxia, it can be more rarely associated with auditory deficits or other neurologic findings. Though hearing loss has previously been reported as a rare symptom of WE, it has not been described in WE due to alcohol abuse. We performed a review of the literature to determine if WE associated with hearing loss had been previously reported.
ISSN:2000-9666
2000-9666
DOI:10.1080/20009666.2020.1808359