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.