Gopal Bajaj1, Rahul Vaidya2, Sandeep Shankar3
BACKGROUND
Metabolic encephalopathy (ME) is one of the most frequently encountered and
broadly defined diagnoses by the physicians in the intensive care setting. ME is a
clinical state characterized by cerebral dysfunction in the absence of structural
brain disease. The causes are many and often multifactorial. The purpose of study
was to evaluate various causes, clinical profile, and outcome in patients with ME.
METHODS
This is a hospital based, observational, cross sectional study, conducted in ICU of
Department of General medicine, S.N. Medical College, Bagalkot. Patients with
head trauma, organic causes of altered sensorium, psychiatric conditions were
excluded.
RESULTS
Mean age was 51.22 ± 17.24 years. Majority were males. Diabetes was the most
common comorbidity found followed by cirrhosis of liver and hypertension. Septic
causes were found to be the most common aetiology. 80.7 % recovered from the
disease and death was noted in 19.3 % patients.
CONCLUSIONS
All the patients with ME had altered level of consciousness with fever being the
most common symptom. Most of them were males, most common aetiology was
septic cause, and recovery was seen in about 80.7 % of patients.
