Symptoms:

• Decreased language ability (aphasia)
• Decreased motivation
• Impaired judgment
• Loss of ability to calculate
• Loss of long-term memory (long-past events)
• Loss of short-term memory (recent events)
• Muscle weakness (difficulty using legs, arms, or other parts of the body)
• Personality changes
  • Delusions, hallucinations
  • Irritability, anger
  • Inappropriate moods
  • No mood
• Seizures

Signs and tests:

Signs include:

• Change in the response of the pupil in the eye
• Inability to stand with the eyes closed (Romberg test)
• Loss of sense of vibration and position
• Muscle weakness
• Problems with walking (gait)
• Slowly worsening dementia, with loss of many brain functions

The doctor may do the following tests:

• Eye exam
• Muscle exam
• Nervous system (neurologic) exam

Blood tests to detect syphilis in the body include:

• FTA-ABS
• RPR
• VDRL

Tests of the nervous system may include:

• Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)
• Head CT scan and MRI
• Nerve conduction tests