CHRONIC INFLAMMATORY MENINGOENCEPHALITIS SHOULD NOT BE MISTAKEN FOR ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE

We describe two patients with a chronic encephalopathy that clinically resembled dementia but that resolved after oral administration of hig h-dose corticosteroid therapy. Both patients had serologically documen ted Sjogren's syndrome, a diagnosis that was further supported by biop sy of a salivary gland in one. Neither patient had radiologic evidence of vasculitis of the central nervous system. In one patient, meningea l and brain biopsy specimens showed perivascular inflammatory lymphocy tic infiltrates. Chronic inflammatory meningoencephalitis is a treatab le cause of chronic encephalopathy that should be clinically distingui shed from dementia associated with Alzheimer's disease.