Dysautonomic seizures in patients admitted to an intensive care unit following severe traumatic brain injury

Aim. To describe clinical and radiologic features of dysautonomic crisis after severe traumatic brain injury and its influence in the clinical situation six months later. Patients and methods. Retrospective, observatory study of seven patients after severe head injury, with dysautonomic crisis, admitted in the Critical Care Unit (CCU) during six months. No interventions. Its clinical features, its association with intracranial pressure and the treatment for Dysautonomic crisis they have received were extracted from the computed clinical report. We have evaluated his neurologic prognosis with the Jennet-Bond scale and his radiologic characteristics with the Gennarelly scale. Results. Dysautonomic crisis began in the first week if the patients didn't received neuromuscular blocks drugs and they continued when the patients were discharged from, the CCU in a young population with an initial Glasgow scale coma of 5 points. We didn't wait a special radiologic pattern. After the next six months, crisis were disappeared in 86% of patients and all patients reached a good neurologic level in the Jennet-Bond scale. Conclusions. Dysautonomic crisis appeared early in young men after severe head injury. We didn't find a radiologic pattern that predisposes the dysautonomic crisis. They didn't interfere the recovering six months after head injury.