Meningitis

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Brudzinski's sign of meningitis	Haemophilus influenza organism	Kernig's sign of meningitis	Lumbar puncture (spinal tap)
Meninges of the brain	Meninges of the spine

• Fever and chills
• Severe headache
• Nausea and vomiting
• Stiff neck (meningismus)
• Sensitivity to light (photophobia)
• Mental status changes

Additional symptoms that may be associated with this disease:

• Decreased consciousness
• Rapid breathing
• Agitation
• Opisthotonos (severe neck stiffness, ultimately resulting in a characteristic arched posture-seen in infants or small children)
• Bulging fontanelles (the soft spots in a baby's skull may bulge)
• Poor feeding or irritability in children

Meningitis is an important cause of fever in newborn children. For this reason, a lumbar puncture is often done on newborns who have a fever of uncertain origin.

• Lumbar puncture with CSF glucose measurement and CSF cell count
• Gram-stain and culture of CSF (cerebral spinal fluid)
• Chest x-ray to look for other sites of infection
• Head CT scan looking for hydrocephalus, abscess or deep swelling

Review Date: 11/09/2005
Reviewed By: Kenneth Wener, M.D., Division of Infectious Diseases, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network.