Acute transient freezing of gait in a patient with posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome

BACKGROUND: Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) is a transient clinical and neuroradiologic syndrome caused by cerebral vasogenic edema. Various reversible neurologic symptoms were shown in patients with PRES. Freezing of gait (FOG) is mainly observed in neurodegenerative diseases. CASE PRESENTATION: We report a 43-year-old man, with undergoing hemodialysis therapy for chronic renal failure, had mild elevation of blood pressure. His consciousness level suddenly deteriorated, and brain MRI demonstrated hyperintense lesions in the bilateral basal ganglia on fluid-attenuated inversion recovery images, diffusion-weighted images, and apparent diffusion coefficient maps. After improvement of disturbance of consciousness, he showed FOG accompanied by bradykinesia and postural instability. His FOG spontaneously improved concurrently with alleviation of basal ganglionic lesions on follow-up MRI. CONCLUSIONS: It is suggested that vasogenic edema on bilateral basal ganglia associated with PRES can cause acute transient FOG.