Dyslexia Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Dyslexia, including details on learning, reading, education, teaching, treatment.

Large acute cerebral hemorrhage presenting with pure alexia.

Thomas JJ, Sanford JM

Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35249-7013, USA.

Alexia (the acquired inability to read) is an uncommon presenting complaint in the emergency department (ED). It is usually associated with a lesion in the brain located within the dominant hemisphere near the parieto-occipital junction, with some involvement of the splenium of the corpus callosum. Our review of the literature revealed multiple distinct causes for the finding of alexia, and a majority of the cases uncovered also involved agraphia (the acquired inability to write) and frequently visual field defects. We present the case of an otherwise healthy 35-year-old white man who arrived at our ED with the chief complaint of having difficulty reading. He was, however, able to write, and he exhibited no defects in his visual fields on gross testing in our ED. The patient was found to have a large, acute, intraparenchymal hemorrhage in the right posterior/inferior parietal cortex, very near the occipital lobe. We present this case, followed by a brief discussion, to heighten awareness of the complaint of alexia with or without agraphia as a possible presenting symptom of intracranial hemorrhage, or ischemic cerebrovascular accident.

Published 20 March 2007 in Ann Emerg Med, 49(4): 428-30.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Dyslexia Research Today. All Rights Reserved.