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Visual and Auditory Hallucinations: An Uncommon Side Effect of Levetiracetam in an Elderly Patient

This report focuses on a 77-year-old female who was admitted to an acute geriatrics unit at a tertiary care hospital with a history of recurrent falls and right leg weakness. Computed tomography of the head demonstrated acute left subdural hemorrhage with a possible extradural component at the verte...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Tahir, Hina, Ayyaz, Faraz, Ekwegh, Uruakanwa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cureus 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9686361/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36439615
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.30668
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author Tahir, Hina
Ayyaz, Faraz
Ekwegh, Uruakanwa
author_facet Tahir, Hina
Ayyaz, Faraz
Ekwegh, Uruakanwa
author_sort Tahir, Hina
collection PubMed
description This report focuses on a 77-year-old female who was admitted to an acute geriatrics unit at a tertiary care hospital with a history of recurrent falls and right leg weakness. Computed tomography of the head demonstrated acute left subdural hemorrhage with a possible extradural component at the vertex. This was causing mass effect with effacement of the left superior, frontal, and parietal lobes with no hydrocephalus or fracture. She had an episode of non-convulsive seizure secondary to a head injury and was commenced on levetiracetam. The patient started to display previously unreported visual and auditory hallucinations within four days of starting the medication. After ruling out other potential causes of the symptoms, our team narrowed it down to levetiracetam-induced hallucinations and subsequently discontinued the medication. We commenced pregabalin for seizure control, and there were no further episodes of hallucinations.
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spelling pubmed-96863612022-11-25 Visual and Auditory Hallucinations: An Uncommon Side Effect of Levetiracetam in an Elderly Patient Tahir, Hina Ayyaz, Faraz Ekwegh, Uruakanwa Cureus Internal Medicine This report focuses on a 77-year-old female who was admitted to an acute geriatrics unit at a tertiary care hospital with a history of recurrent falls and right leg weakness. Computed tomography of the head demonstrated acute left subdural hemorrhage with a possible extradural component at the vertex. This was causing mass effect with effacement of the left superior, frontal, and parietal lobes with no hydrocephalus or fracture. She had an episode of non-convulsive seizure secondary to a head injury and was commenced on levetiracetam. The patient started to display previously unreported visual and auditory hallucinations within four days of starting the medication. After ruling out other potential causes of the symptoms, our team narrowed it down to levetiracetam-induced hallucinations and subsequently discontinued the medication. We commenced pregabalin for seizure control, and there were no further episodes of hallucinations. Cureus 2022-10-25 /pmc/articles/PMC9686361/ /pubmed/36439615 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.30668 Text en Copyright © 2022, Tahir et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Internal Medicine
Tahir, Hina
Ayyaz, Faraz
Ekwegh, Uruakanwa
Visual and Auditory Hallucinations: An Uncommon Side Effect of Levetiracetam in an Elderly Patient
title Visual and Auditory Hallucinations: An Uncommon Side Effect of Levetiracetam in an Elderly Patient
title_full Visual and Auditory Hallucinations: An Uncommon Side Effect of Levetiracetam in an Elderly Patient
title_fullStr Visual and Auditory Hallucinations: An Uncommon Side Effect of Levetiracetam in an Elderly Patient
title_full_unstemmed Visual and Auditory Hallucinations: An Uncommon Side Effect of Levetiracetam in an Elderly Patient
title_short Visual and Auditory Hallucinations: An Uncommon Side Effect of Levetiracetam in an Elderly Patient
title_sort visual and auditory hallucinations: an uncommon side effect of levetiracetam in an elderly patient
topic Internal Medicine
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9686361/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36439615
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.30668
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