The misfortune of the failure to diagnose a medical condition is the loss of time - time that could have been used to treat, to prevent the progress of a disease, time with family. The failure to diagnose meningitis is becoming a leading cause of medical malpractice.
Meningitis is diagnosed by examining the cerebral spinal fluid obtained via spinal tap.
This is the only way to confirm a suspected infection. Meningitis is often misdiagnosed as something less serious because early symptoms are similar to the flu. Treatable when caught early, it is unfortuante that most of the fatalities associated with meningitis occur because of failure to diagnose the disease early enough.
If unchecked, the enduring infection will lead to a rise in pressure in the skull, due to accumulating fluid, followed by failure of autoregualtory processes like respiration. Treatment for meningitis is antiviral or antibiotic medications, depending of the etiology of the infection. Unfortunately, emergence of antibiotic resistant strain in some countries has lead to adjustments in treatment protocols.
