Cognitive impairment after acute encephalitis: comparison of herpes simplex and other aetiologies.

Abstract

The recovery in the HSVE group was better than expected based on the medical literature. On the other hand there were surprisingly severe cognitive defects in encephalitis after other viruses. With early acyclovir treatment patients with the least severe HSVE were equivalent to those with non-HSV encephalitis with good outcome whereas those with the most severe non-HSV encephalitis were equivalent to those with HSVE with poor outcome.