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By ROMAN KHAZIN
The Canadian Press

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ROCKWOOD, Ont. - At age three, Arden Shilletto had to relearn to eat, talk and walk.

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The Canadian Press

Arden Shilletto plays in the living room of her family's Rockwood, Ont. home. The three-year-old had to relearn how to eat, talk and walk after contracting necrotizing encephalitis earlier this year.

In March, she was diagnosed with acute necrotizing encephalitis, an illness that causes inflammation of the brain. Since then, the girl from Rockwood, Ont., northeast of Guelph, has spent weeks in hospital and months in rehab relearning basic activities.

The illness, which primarily affected her brain stem, has caused her muscle tone to be heightened. Muscle tone is determined by the signals sent from the brain to the muscles telling them what to do. When the signal is too strong, the muscles contract too much and affect the person's ability to move.

Arden's heightened muscle tone was mostly in her right leg and both arms, and she still has to use a walker and wear leg braces to walk.

"In the grand scheme of things, the fact that if she has to wear braces for the rest of her life, it's a small thing," said Rachel Shilletto, Arden's mother.

Encephalitis can be fatal and subsequent brain damage can cause not only abnormal muscle tone, but also other long-term problems, according to the U.S. National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

The effect of encephalitis is particularly difficult to gauge compared to other brain injuries, said John Kumpf, executive director of the Ontario Brain Injury Association.

Kumpf said with other injuries, it is sometimes possible to pinpoint which area of the brain was damaged, and determine which functions will be affected. With encephalitis, he said, many areas of the brain, and their corresponding functions, can be affected.

"Anyone who tries to give you a prognosis, particularly on something like encephalitis, is really taking a shot in the dark," he said.

Encephalitis develops from bacterial or viral infections, most often the latter. Arden's illness developed from influenza B, which has the same symptoms as mild cases of encephalitis.

In more serious cases, a range of symptoms may be caused by encephalitis, including fever, vomiting, weakness, confusion, hallucinations, seizures, paralysis, memory loss and personality change, among others.

Shilletto said Arden's health ordeal first presented itself with flu symptoms for three days. When she vomited in bed, however, her parents took her to hospital in Fergus.

"You could see that she was not herself," her mother said.

While at the hospital, Arden began having seizures and was sedated. Hours after getting to the Fergus facility, Arden was rushed to Hamilton's McMaster Children's Hospital, where she was diagnosed with encephalitis, her mother said.

"I thought it was a bad dream. I really didn't know what to think about it," she recalled, struggling to hold back tears.

Arden spent six weeks at McMaster.

Shilletto said after being sedated, Arden didn't open her eyes for three days. She also couldn't feed herself for four weeks and said little in the first seven weeks.

After leaving McMaster, Arden spent 16 weeks at Bloorview Kids Rehab, in Toronto, doing physiotherapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy.

She continues physiotherapy at KidsAbility Centre for Child Development in Guelph.

But while Arden had to relearn many of her everyday activities, Shilletto said the illness did not seem to affect her memory or cognitive skills, though this can only be told as time passes.

Kumpf said children's brains have a better chance of adjusting after a brain injury. But while a person may regain lost functions and abilities, Kumpf said people often change after a brain injury.

Still, Shilletto said she hopes Arden will recover and would like to send her to junior kindergarten next September.

"It's a matter of keeping faith and hoping that everything turns out OK," she said.