What is Encephalitis?

By Disabled World - 2006-01-10 Find more articles like this in our Neurological Conditions category.

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What is Encephalitis?

Encephalitis means "inflammation of the brain," but it usually refers to brain inflammation caused by a virus. This severe and potentially life-threatening disease is rare.

Encephalitis takes two forms, categorized by the two ways that viruses can infect your brain:

Primary encephalitis.

This occurs when a virus directly invades your brain and spinal cord. It can happen to people at any time of the year (sporadic encephalitis), or it can be part of an outbreak (epidemic encephalitis).

Secondary (post-infectious) encephalitis.

This form occurs when a virus first infects another part of your body and secondarily enters your brain.

The primary form of the disease is more serious, while the secondary form is more common. But because of the milder nature of secondary encephalitis, doctors actually see more cases of primary encephalitis.

See your doctor if you experience signs and symptoms of primary or secondary encephalitis because the course of the disease is unpredictable.