特異な経過を辿つた頭部外傷性めまいの1例

A CASE OF POST-TRAUMATIC VERTIGO

　頭部外傷後，末梢性あるいは中枢性障害を来たし，めまいを訴える例をしばしば経験する。めまいは頭部外傷後遺症として頻度の高い愁訴の一つであるが，今回われわれは特異な眼振所見および経過を示した1例を経験したので報告する。

　A case of post-traumatic vertigo was reported. The patient, 43-year-old man, complained of severe positional vertigo on lateral head positions after receiving a golf ball hit on the left postauricular occipit. In contrast with the decrease of positional vertigo according to the time elapsed,which was characterized by direction-changingdown-beating positional nystagmus and rotatorysensation,psychoncurotic symptoms due to an-xiety neurosis became stronger,resulting in uncontrollable fits of anxiety of sudden onset. Hecommitted suicide 107 days after the head traumaduring the third anxiety fit.Although it seemscurious that during the course the psychoneuroticsymptoms diminished quickly after the recurrentvertiginous attack and appeared again as thevertigo dccreased, this phenomenon is well understood on the view of psychosomatic medicineas a passive conversion of psychogenic frustrationinto somatic disorder.