COURSE AND OUTCOME OF ACUTE CEREBELLAR-ATAXIA

We report a study of 73 consecutive children with acute cerebellar ata xia, representing all of the children evaluated at St. Louis Children' s Hospital during a 23-year-period to whom this diagnosis could approp riately be assigned. Twenty-six percent had chickenpox, 52% had other illnesses that were presumed to be viral, and in 3% the ataxia was rel ated to immunization. Nineteen percent had no definite prodrome. Sixty children were followed for 4 months or longer after onset of their at axia (mean, 7.4+/-6.0 years). Ninety-one percent (55/60) of these, inc luding all children with chickenpox, recovered completely from ataxia. Eighty-nine percent (39/44) of the children with non-varicella-relate d ataxia recovered completely from the ataxia, a much better rate of r ecovery than what was found in prior large studies. One fifth of the c hildren followed for more than 4 months experienced transient behavior al or intellectual difficulties, but only 5 of the 60 children demonst rated sustained learning problems. This study represents the largest r eported series of acute cerebellar ataxia and the most complete charac terization of the clinical features and outcome of this illness.