AIR Series: Neurology Module 2 – Headaches, Seizures, and Other
Welcome to the Second Neurology Module! After carefully reviewing all relevant posts from the top 50 sites of the Social Media Index the ALiEM AIR Team is proud to present the highest quality neurology content relating to headaches, seizures, and other neurologic emergencies. Below we have listed our selection of the 17 highest quality blog posts within the past 12 months (as of December 2015) related to neurologic emergencies, curated and approved for residency training by the AIR Series Board. More specifically in this module, we identified 9 AIRs and 8 Honorable Mentions.
You are working your evening shift at the pediatrics emergency department, and you walk into a darkened patient room with a distressed mother and her otherwise healthy 10-year old son who is curled in a ball, holding his head and crying. Her mother tells you that the around-the-clock ibuprofen has barely touched his 2-day headache.
Every day in the Emergency Department we see older adults with dementia who have developed delirium and are brought in because of worsening agitation, combativeness, or confusion. In order to care for them, we have to consider what the underlying cause of their agitation may be, but we also have to protect the patient and staff in case of violent outbursts. Older adults experience a phenomenon termed ‘homeostenosis’ in which their physiologic reserve and the degree to which they can compensate for stressors is narrowed, putting them at risk for delirium. This post will outline ways to prevent and de-escalate agitation in a patient with delirium, and how to treat it pharmacologically in a cautious manner to minimize side effects.
