Any muscle disease often has a connection with the defeat of the most important system in the human body - the central nervous system. Muscle rigidity is a pathological condition that occurs due to the excessively frequent sending of impulses from the brain, due to which their tone increases and a state of stiffness, or rigidity, occurs. In addition to rigidity, there are other types of muscle damage, be it atony - a condition in which normal muscle tone is lost , hypertension - a noticeable decrease in muscle tone, hypertension - an increase in muscle tone. All this indicates the presence of certain diseases, most often the nervous system. So, for example, neck muscle stiffness in most cases indicates the presence of meningitis or other central nervous system lesions.
CNS lesions are not the only cause of this pathology. For example, stiff neck can develop in connection with an inflammatory disease of muscle tissue, but more often such conditions have the form of hypotension. The definition of rigidity is very often used as a method for diagnosing diseases in children. To do this, they ask you to tilt your head and try to reach your chest with your chin (if it comes to small children, then the doctor independently tilts the baby's head). In the case when stiff neck is noted, an additional study should be prescribed to carefully differentiate a possible disease.
The main cause of stiff neck and neck muscles is meningococcal infection. It can be of different types.
Purulent meningitis is a group of diseases of the nervous system, which is characterized by the occurrence of cerebral, general infection, meningeal syndromes and inflammatory changes in the cerebral fluid with the presence of pus in it. Purulent meningitis in children makes up about 20-30% of all cases, and in 90% of the cause of the disease is pneumococcus, meningococcus or hemophilic bacillus. Staphylococci, Salmonella, Escherichia, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Listeria, Klebsiella and other bacteria are somewhat less likely to develop the disease.
Meningococcal meningitis
The causative agent of this bacterial disease is gram-negative meningococcus Neisseria meningitides. The source of infection can be any patient. The infection is transmitted by airborne droplets. The onset of the disease is characterized by a rise in temperature, chills, pronounced symptoms of intoxication (lethargy, refusal to eat and drink, adynamia, headaches). Later, the children become restless, the headache becomes stronger (increases due to sound or light stimuli). Vomiting appears, which is not associated with meals and does not bring any relief. Patients are pale, there is tachycardia. Strong stiff neck.
Pneumococcal meningitis
The causative agent of pneumococcal meningitis is Streptococcus pneumonie. The source of infection is any patient with various forms of pneumococcal infection, as well as carriers of pneumococcus. The transmission path is airborne. The disease is characterized by an acute onset: there is a sharp (usually in the first hour) rise in temperature to 39-40 ° C, signs of intoxication are rapidly growing. Then symptoms resembling meningococcal infection appear. By the second or third day, meningeal symptoms, in particular, stiff neck, are clearly manifested. If the treatment is carried out in a timely and adequate manner, then the improvement can be observed after the first week. Quite often, a relapsing or protracted course of the disease is noted, which greatly complicates the treatment.
Thus, neck stiffness is a good reason to immediately consult a doctor to exclude the presence of meningococcal infection.