Anton-Babinski syndrome in an old patient: a case report and literature review

Anton-Babinski syndrome is a rare disease featuring bilateral cortical blindness and anosognosia with visual confabulation, but without dementia or any memory impairment. It has a unique neuropsychiatric presentation and should be highly suspected in those with odd visual loss and imaging evidence of occipital lobe injury. In the case discussed herein, a 90-year-old man presented with bilateral blindness, obvious anosognosia, and vivid visual confabulation, which he had had for 3 days. Brain computed tomography demonstrated recent hypodense infarctions at the bilateral occipital lobes. Thus, the patient was diagnosed with Anton-Babinski syndrome. Because of his age and the thrombolytic therapy during the golden 3 hours after ischemic stroke, the patient received aspirin therapy rather than tissue plasminogen activator or warfarin. He gradually realized he was blind during the following week, but died of pneumonia 1 month later. In the literature, it is difficult to establish awareness of blindness in patients with Anton-Babinski syndrome, but optimistically, in one report, a patient was aware of blindness within 2 weeks, without vision improvement. Our case illustrates that elderly patients with Anton-Babinski syndrome can partially recover and that 1 week is the shortest time for the establishment of awareness of blindness for sufferers without vision improvement.