Which patients does the neurologist assist? Basis for a curriculum in neurology

Abstract

To present the most frequent diagnosis of patients referred to a neurologist and to discuss the importance of this finding for the definition of the curriculum in Neurology. The development of subspecialties of Neurology is interfering in the definition of what should be taught to train a physician or a neurologist. The knowledge of which are the most common neurological diseases may contribute to construct these curricula. The initial diagnosis in 1815 outpatients referred to the neurologic service of an university-affiliated public hospital in São Paulo, Brazil, were analyzed. The most common diagnosis, in decreasing order of frequency were: headache, epilepsy, mental disorders, cerebrovascular disease, head injury, polyneuropathy, vestibular syndrome, spastic crural paraparesis, extrapyramidal syndrome, dementia, intracranial hypertension and facial palsy. The importance of the subspecialties in the curriculum should be related to the frequency of the neurologic diseases in the community.