Alternating hemiplegia. Partial effectiveness of treatment with flunarizine

: A case of alternating hemiplegia in a young girl is presented. The partial benefits of treatment with a calcium antagonist Flunarizine in this patient and in those reported in literature are reviewed. The onset of the disease in this girl was at three months of age with several episodes that were diagnosed as seizures; afterwards she presented, besides, repeated attacks of hemiplegia involving both sides of her body in an alternating way each time with daily frequency and hours of days of duration accompanied of bad mood and irritability as well as autonomic disturbances, oculomotor abnormalities, acquired mental retardation and residual focal neurological abnormalities. After one year of treatment with a calcium-entry blocker: Flunarizine, there was a 30% reduction in the attacks frequency as well as in its severity and stop of the progression of mental retardation. So we report the consequence of precocious diagnosis and treatment of this not well known entity whose clinical signs resemble paroxistic vascular anomalies in the brainstem territory.