NEUROLOGIC COMPLICATIONS OF CRITICAL ILLNESS, 2ND EDITION

Abstract

NEUROLOGIC COMPLICATIONS OF CRITICAL ILLNESS, 2nd edition By Eelco F. M. Wijdicks 2002. Oxford: Oxford University Press Price £79.50. pp. 435. ISBN 0195140796 This monograph is the latest in the Contemporary Neurology series and is written entirely by one author. Professor Wijdicks is the director of the neurological and neurosurgical intensive care unit (ICU) at the Mayo Clinic, and his great experience of neurology in the ICU is readily apparent throughout the book. He writes in a consistent and authoritative fashion on the acute neurology which finds its way to the ICU. In the UK at least such patients would usually be under the care of other doctors before neurologists are consulted, often quite late. The book is very comprehensive in its coverage, including something on virtually every critical illness with serious neurological complications (the only omission I could think of was porphyria). Part 1 is the most rewarding section of the book. It is an overview of coma and its assessment, with a discussion of some of the general problems which may arise in such patients. The discussions on coma and its assessment are quite standard, and could be found in other text books. However, what most advanced readers will like is the overview of the common clinical presentations with which they are faced, such as ‘failure to awaken after surgery’, the consideration of coma in patients with normal CT scans, and then entire chapters dealing with issues such as seizures …