Evaluating Mold/Neurologic Complnts

Determining if mold is the cause of a patient’s neurological complaints is a real challenge, even for the most observant clinician. Mold is a term used for fungi which decomposes organic matter in the environment. Fungi, including yeasts, rusts, smuts, mushrooms, bracket fungi, and puffballs, are ubiquitous, making exposure unavoidable except in a setting in which stringent air filtration is occurring, as in an organ transplant unit in a hospital. Molds can affect people through allergy, infection, and toxicity. Allergic antibodies may be found in 10 percent of the population, half of whom display clinical symptoms.