Recovery following lateral medullary infarction.

Lateral medullary infarction (LMI) has a well-defined clinical syndrome and vascular pathology. The functional outcome and degree of disability of patients with LMI, however, have not been as well investigated. We followed 18 consecutive patients with LMI during inpatient stroke rehabilitation. Thirteen patients were followed after discharge from the hospital over a mean time of 1 year. The degree of disability on admission and discharge from the hospital, and at follow-up was assessed using the motor component of the Functional Independence Measurement (FIM-motor). All patients were discharged home. During inpatient rehabilitation, the functional performance of all patients improved substantially from FIM-motor 50.9 +/- 13.0 (mean +/- SD) on admission to 76.9 +/- 10.5 at discharge. Patients with lower FIM-motor scores on admission had more functional improvement from admission to discharge than those with higher FIM-motor scores on admission. Patients with disease of the posterior inferior cerebellar artery showed significantly less functional improvement than patients with disease of the vertebral artery or no identified vascular pathology in the posterior circulation. In the follow-up group, the FIM-motor scores further improved to 84.6 +/- 8.4, indicating nearly full functional independence. Eighty-five percent were totally independent with ambulation. Five of seven previously working patients returned to work. Patients with LMI have few functional deficits after completion of inpatient rehabilitation, continue to improve functionally after discharge, and often resume their previous activities.