In many cases, the person makes a full recovery. In other cases, the person can be left with varying degrees of brain damage, which may require long-term supportive care and therapy.
A commonly identified infective cause of encephalitis is the herpes simplex virus (HSV), and this form can be associated with a mortality of up to 30% with specific anti-viral treatment, and up to 70-80% without the treatment.
Left untreated, autoimmune encephalitis can quickly become serious. It may lead to coma or permanent brain injury. In rare cases, it can be fatal.
In cases of autoimmune encephalitis, symptoms may develop more slowly over several weeks. Flu-like symptoms are less common, but can sometimes happen weeks before more-severe symptoms start.
Mild cases of encephalitis generally present with fatigue, weakness, possibly low grade fever, and headache. Most people who have mild cases of encephalitis make a full recovery within 2 to 4 weeks, although many will continue to feel fatigued and "out of sorts" for many weeks thereafter.
While the clinical and radiographic presentations of these diseases are often distinctly different, viral encephalitis can sometimes masquerade as glioblastoma. Rarely, glioblastoma can also be misdiagnosed as viral encephalitis.
Recovery. The inflammation of the brain can last from a few days to two or three months. After this, most people find that they make their best recovery from their symptoms within two or three months.
Recovering from encephalitis can be a long, slow and difficult process. Many people will never make a full recovery. Specialised services are available to aid recovery and help the person adapt to any persistent problems – this is known as rehabilitation.
an electroencephalogram (EEG) – where small electrodes are placed on your scalp, which pick up the electrical signals from your brain and show abnormal brain activity. tests of your blood, urine or other bodily fluids to check for an infection.
Do people recover after Encephalitis? In many cases, people will make a good recovery from encephalitis, but nerve cells in the brain may be damaged. This can lead to long-term effects, which are sometimes severe.
In one study of 251 cases of temporal lobe encephalitis identified by MRI, 43% were of an infectious etiology (60 cases were herpes simplex encephalitis) and 16% noninfectious.
At a later time, emotional or physical stress can reactivate the virus to cause an infection of the brain. It causes the most subacute (between acute and chronic) and chronic (lasting three or more months) encephalitis infections in humans.
Exercise, specifically both strength training and cardiovascular training, decreases systemic inflammation. Stress reduction and quality sleep are essential for reducing brain inflammation, as chronic stress and too little sleep can increase your inflammatory burden.
Encephalitis is most often due to a virus, such as: herpes simplex viruses, which cause cold sores (this is the most common cause of encephalitis)
COVID-19-associated encephalitis has been described as a neurological complication that can occur at all stages of a positive SARS-CoV-2 infection (2, 3) and considered a medical emergency requiring urgent care, with complications encompassing severe disability and death (3-6).
"An individual with autoimmune encephalitis might have 40 to 50 more years to live.
Travelers abroad are most at risk for Japanese encephalitis and tick-borne encephalitis. Japanese encephalitis is mosquito-borne and occurs mainly in: China, Japan, and Korea. Eastern Russia.
Summary. Viral encephalitis is an inflammation of the brain caused by a virus. The most serious potential complication is permanent brain damage. Children aged under one year and adults aged over 55 years are at increased risk of life-threatening complications.
Red flags for AIE in patients aged 45 years or older are a rapidly progressive cognitive decline, abnormalities in ancillary testing (inflammatory changes in the CSF or on MRI), easily missed subtle seizures early in the disease course, and prominent seizures later in the disease.
Diagnostics tests, which can help to confirm a diagnosis of encephalitis include laboratory tests which analyse cerebrospinal fluid, blood, urine and other body fluids and radiological tests (computed tomography - CT, magnetic resonance imaging - MRI, electroencephalogram - EEG).
Treating the cause
steroid injections – used if encephalitis is caused by a problem with the immune system and sometimes in cases linked to the chickenpox virus; treatment is usually for a few days. immunoglobulin therapy – medicine that helps control the immune system.
Etiologic diagnosis is difficult because of the large number of agents that can cause encephalitis. Also, the responsible virus may be detectable only in the brain and is either absent or transiently found in blood or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).