CONCISE COMMUNICATION Cognitive Impairment in Adults with Good Recovery after Bacterial Meningitis

Adults without neurologic sequelae after bacterial meningitis are supposed to live without restrictions. Neuropsychological outcome was assessed in 51 adults from a prospective cohort with good recovery, defined as Glasgow Outcome Scale score 5, after pneumococcal or me-ningococcal meningitis. Patients who recovered well after pneumococcal meningitis showed cognitive slowness (). A cognitive disorder was found in 27 % of these patients. PatientsPp.001 who previously had meningococcal meningitis were not significantly different from control subjects. Scores on general health and quality of life questionnaires revealed lower scores for patients with meningitis, which were related to cognitive slowing (R, 0.46 to 0.38). In conclusion, adults surviving pneumococcal meningitis were at significant risk of neuropsy-chological abnormalities, even if they were clinically well recovered. The most common etiologic agents of bacterial meningitis in adulthood are Neisseria meningitidis and Streptococcus pneu-moniae, which cause 80%–85 % of all cases [1, 2]. Fatality rates in patients with meningitis caused by these microorganisms are significant, with rates of 10 % and 26%, respectively [1, 2]. Nev