progressive supranuclear palsy

[roxy]

My 82 year old mother had a small hemoragic stroke the end of December. While she was in rehabilitation, we cleaned her house for her. We found an MRI that was taken about three years ago, before she had a pacemaker. The interpretation stated that she has multiple spaces in the Basal Ganglia. About four weeks ago, she was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy. Could there be a relationship between the spaces in the basal ganglia and progressive supranuclear palsy?

[MG (Admin)]

Were the spaces referred to as "Virchow Robin spaces"?

[roxy]

No. It just said multiple spaces. I got a bit of info from her primary doctor. She had passed out several years ago so he sent her for a cat scan. After doing the cat scan, she had the mri. We can't determine who ordered the MRI. We really can't get any additional information about the incident which happened 7-8 years ago. Her current neurologist said that she either has vascular dementia or PSP but he is pretty certain that She has Progressive supranuclear palsy based upon her stiff gait and a variety of symptoms picked up during neurological. Her processing is slow, she speaks very softly and has to force herself to use a "louder" voice and it takes her awhile to respond to information and act upon it. Unfortunately, she can not have a repeat mri due to her pace maker. She is going to go for a neuropsych Monday to hopefully gain more information to firm up a dx and serve as a baseline.

[Melvyn]

good luck

[roxy]

Melvyn thanks for your good wishes. Today we saw my mom and she looked horrible. She has definitely lost weight. She refuses to use the walker in her room no matter what we say to her. When she walks, she is stiff and kind of sways a bit. With the walker, she looks a lot better. She told us that she doesn't like the way her eyes look...they don't look right. A lot of the time, her eyes look wide open like a deer in the headlights. I suspect that is what she is referring to. Some days she is quite conversant but today she was kind of confused. This is truley a miserable disease