Assessment of Cerebral Dysfunction

The following notes are intended for use in the Critical Care setting. In this situation two distinct scenarios may challenge the knowledge of the attending physician: in the first scenario an acute patient presents a sudden deterioration of his neurological status. In the second scenario a case with established diagnosis of neurological damage should be followed in his clinical course, and neuro monitoring is used in order to assess the trend of his cerebral damage. In the first part of this survey we will cover the acute diagnostic problems of a patient with impaired consciousness. In the second part we will touch some aspects of intracranial pressure monitoring, one of the key parameters in neuro intensive care.