[Neurological chief complaints in an emergency room]

Nervenarzt. 2010 Oct;81(10):1226-30. doi: 10.1007/s00115-010-3020-x.
[Article in German]

Abstract

Neurological chief complaints often lead patients into the emergency room. In order to establish standard emergency workups it is important to know the frequency of neurological chief complaints. Therefore, we performed a retrospective study on 4,132 consecutive neurological patients in the emergency room over a 1-year period. The most frequent chief complaint was headache (20%) followed by motor deficit (13%), vertigo (12%) and epileptic seizure (11%). In conclusion, the neurological workup in the emergency room can be optimized by establishing clinical decision-making rules for the four most frequent chief complaints.

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Age Factors
  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Berlin
  • Cooperative Behavior
  • Cross-Sectional Studies
  • Diagnosis, Differential
  • Emergency Service, Hospital* / statistics & numerical data
  • Epilepsy / diagnosis
  • Epilepsy / epidemiology
  • Epilepsy / etiology
  • Female
  • Headache / epidemiology
  • Headache / etiology
  • Health Services Research
  • Hospitals, University
  • Humans
  • Interdisciplinary Communication
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Movement Disorders / epidemiology
  • Movement Disorders / etiology
  • Nervous System Diseases / diagnosis*
  • Nervous System Diseases / epidemiology
  • Nervous System Diseases / etiology*
  • Referral and Consultation
  • Sex Factors
  • Vertigo / epidemiology
  • Vertigo / etiology
  • Young Adult