Symptoms and Signs in Brain Disease

Abstract

Brain disease can present with many symptoms and signs. Patients complain about their symptoms; physicians observe signs (e.g., objective abnormalities on neurological examination). Symptoms can include alterations in thinking and consciousness, seizures, visual blind spots, double vision, difficulty with smell, loss of dexterity or power or both, problems with gait, and sensory abnormalities.

Signs can include abnormal eye movements, visual defects, weakness of facial, eye or limb muscles, abnormal gait, abnormal reflex examination, and particular movements of toes following noxious stimuli (i.e., Babinski response).

The physician carefully amalgamates the patient’s complaint of symptoms with findings on neurological examination to arrive at a working diagnosis, and then filters this information with diagnostic testing and therapy.