What is Tetanus and what are the symptoms?
Tetanus is a sustained muscular contraction resulting from a rapid series of nerve impulses. It is an acute and serious infection of the central nervous system caused by bacterial infection through wound contamination, and often involves a cut or deep puncture wound. As the infection advances, muscle spasms in the jaw develop, hence it is known as lockjaw. This causes difficulty in swallowing and general muscle spasms and stiffness in other parts of the body.
Tetanus usually affects skeletal muscle, a type of striated muscle. But cardiac or heart muscle is also a type of striated muscle cannot be tetanized, because of its intrinsic electrical properties. The incubation period of this disease ranges from 3 to 21 days, with an average attack of clinical presentation of symptoms in 8 days. If the incubation period is shorter, the chances of death are the higher. In neonatal tetanus, symptoms normally break from 4 to 14 days after birth, averaging about 7 days. There are four different forms of tetanus have been described.
Neonatal tetanus is a type of generalized tetanus that occurs especially in newborn infants. Infants who have not acquired passive immunity affect with disease because the mother has never been immunized. It usually occurs happens through infection of the unhealed umbilical stump, especially when the stump is cut with a non-sterile instrument.
Cephalic tetanus is an unusual form of the disease, occasionally occurring with otitis media or ear infections in which C. tetani is present in the flora of the middle ear, or due to injuries to the head. There is involvement of the cranial nerves, particularly in the facial area.
Generalized tetanus is the usual type of tetanus, usually presents with a descending pattern. The first sign is lockjaw or trismus, and the facial spasms called risus sardonicus, followed by difficulty in swallowing, stiffness of the neck, and rigidity of pectoral and calf muscles.
Sweating, elevated temperature, elevated blood pressure, and episodic rapid heart rate are the symptoms associated with generalized tetanus. Spasms may happen frequently and last for several minutes with the body shaped into a typical form called opisthotonos. Spasms continue for 3 to 4 weeks, and it may take months for complete recovery.
Local tetanus is a rare form of the disease, in which patients have lasting contraction of muscles in the same anatomic area as the injury. The contractions may last for many weeks before gradually subsiding. Local tetanus is usually milder; only about 1% of cases are fatal, but chances are there, it may precede the onset of generalized tetanus.
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