What’s meningismus?

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Meningism is a set of symptoms that are grouped together and can suggest certain diseases. What confuses this term is that it may or may not be associated with diseases such as meningitis. Sometimes this term is used to describe some of the main symptoms of meningitis when it is not present and is considered separate from the disease. In other circumstances, doctors might use this term, or the term meningismus, to refer to any symptoms it represents to be present in meningitis, cases of brain damage, or other diseases that could be causing the symptoms.

There are several symptoms that can therefore be associated with the condition. One of the biggest is stiffness or difficulty moving the neck. In particular, a person may not be able to touch their chin to the chest and may have difficulty looking up. This is also called neck stiffness.

Another of the symptoms that is part of meningismus is the way people react to light. If they have difficulty with bright lights and have to squint or look away, they may be suffering from photophobia. Thus they satisfy the second aspect of meningismus.

When these two conditions are present with often very severe headache, meningitis, cerebral hemorrhage, or other disorders should be considered. There are other ways to diagnose these conditions, but taking a person to the doctor is your best bet since meningitis and brain hemorrhage are medically urgent situations. In fact, when babies have symptoms that include things like high fever and headaches, doctors often advise parents to check for neck stiffness by touching the baby’s chin to their chest. If this is painful or impossible, your child should see a doctor immediately, as swelling of the meninges, the membranes that provide protection to the central nervous system, is extremely dangerous.

However, a child or adult may have all of these symptoms without swelling of the meninges, bleeding in the brain, or meningitis. It’s even better to always be on the safe side under these circumstances. When these conditions are ruled out, meningismus could indicate entirely different diseases such as toxic shock syndrome. However the three symptoms called meningismus should always be taken seriously.

When a person with meningismus goes to the doctor or hospital, there are better diagnoses to determine the underlying problem. Meningitis can be confirmed in the diagnosis by doing various tests such as blood tests and spinal taps. Any bleeding in the brain is usually shown up on CT scans (computed tomography), MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) or X-ray scans. Going by the strictest definition, a person has meningism if none of these tests are positive for meningitis or bleeding in the brain. In a more general sense, such tests can help rule out potential conditions and point doctors to other illnesses or diseases that could be causing your symptoms.

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