Basilar Skull Fracture - Signs and Symptoms

Signs and Symptoms

  • Battle's sign - is ecchymosis of the mastoid process of the temporal bone.
  • Raccoon eyes - is periorbital ecchymosis i.e. "black eyes"
  • Cerebrospinal fluid rhinorrhea
  • Cranial nerve palsy
  • Bleeding from the nose and ears
  • Hemotympanum
  • conductive or perceptive deafness, nystagmus, vomitus
  • In 1 to 10% of patients, optic nerve entrapment occurs: the optic nerve is pressed by the broken skull bones, causing irregularities in vision.
  • Serious cases usually result in death

Read more about this topic:  Basilar Skull Fracture

Famous quotes containing the words signs and/or symptoms:

    “What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the
    tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-colored
    taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous
    to demand the time of the day.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    “Social movements are at once the symptoms and the instruments of progress. Ignore them and statesmanship is irrelevant; fail to use them and it is weak.”
    —Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)