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Acute bilateral deafness often suggests a peripheral otologic disorder or psychogenic cause. Rarely, it is a rare symptom of bilateral temporal lobe infarcts1 or vertebrobasilar system ischemia.2
Case report.
A 74-year-old right-handed woman had sudden onset of complete bilateral deafness, which was noticed by relatives but not the patient herself. Past medical history revealed arterial hypertension and a previous stroke with mild transient hemiparesis on the left side 5 years earlier with no long-term sequelae. The patient's relatives reported a long-standing mild hypoacusis pronounced on the left ear.
At neurologic examination, the patient was alert but did not respond to any verbal commands or environmental sounds, nor did she react to loud noises. She did not realize why her relatives had taken her to hospital. Spontaneous speech was fluent with a few phonematic paraphasias but poorly modulated. Except for brisker deep tendon reflexes on the left, the result of the previous stroke, no discoordination or motor or sensory deficits were detectable.
A complete otologic microscopic examination showed normal findings on …
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- Sudden deafness from stroke
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