Observations placeholder
Thallium poisoning
Identifier
006891
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
The patiients drank water in excess to try to rid themselves of the poison, but only succeeded in creating water intoxication
A description of the experience
Neurotoxicology. 2006 Mar;27(2):291-5. Epub 2005 Dec 5. Central nervous system effects in acute thallium poisoning. Tsai YT, Huang CC, Kuo HC, Wang HM, Shen WS, Shih TS, Chu NS.
We report the central nervous system manifestations, neuropsychological studies and brain magnetic resonance image (MRI) findings of two patients with acute thallium intoxication.
Neurologically the patients suffered from confusion, disorientation, and hallucination in the acute stage, followed by anxiety, depression, lack of attention, and memory impairment, in addition to peripheral neuropathy.
Neuropsychological tests revealed an impairment of memory function, including reversed digital span, memory registration, memory recall, memory recognition, similarity, proverb reasoning, and verbal fluency.
High concentrations of thallium were found in the urine, blood, and drinking water of these two patients.
Brain MRI showed lesions in the corpus striatum in one patient. During the follow-up periods, the clinical manifestations and neuropsychological studies showed a slowly progressive improvement, and a follow-up brain MRI 1.5 months later demonstrated a resolution of the lesions. We conclude that thallium intoxication might induce encephalopathy, and brain MRI studies demonstrated the acute-stage brain lesions in a severe intoxicated patient. In addition, neuropsychological tests also confirmed memory deficits, although the brain lesions in the corpus striatum might resolve.
PMID:16337004
The source of the experience
PubMedConcepts, symbols and science items
Concepts
Symbols
Science Items
Activities and commonsteps
Activities
Overloads
AnxietyDepression
Encephalitis
Heavy metal poisoning
Water intoxication