Pain management/clinical policyClinical Policy: Critical Issues in the Evaluation and Management of Adult Patients Presenting to the Emergency Department With Acute Headache
Section snippets
Abstract
This clinical policy from the American College of Emergency Physicians is an update of a 2002 clinical policy on the evaluation and management of adult patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with acute, nontraumatic headache. A writing subcommittee reviewed the literature to derive evidence-based recommendations to help clinicians answer the following 5 critical questions: (1) Does a response to therapy predict the etiology of an acute headache? (2) Which patients with headache
Methodology
This clinical policy was created after careful review and critical analysis of the medical literature. Multiple searches of MEDLINE and the Cochrane database were performed. Specific key word/phrases used in the searches are identified under each critical question. To update the 2002 ACEP policy, which used literature up to December 1999, all searches were limited to English-language sources, human studies, adults, and years January 2000 to August 2006. Additional articles were reviewed from
Level A recommendations
None specified.
Level B recommendations
None specified.
Level C recommendations
Pain response to therapy should not be used as the sole diagnostic indicator of the underlying etiology of an acute headache.
Key words/phrases for literature searches: thunderclap headache, acute headache, response to therapy, cause or etiology, and variations and combinations of the key words/phrases.
Because headache is a common complaint, physicians have sought ways to differentiate the serious life-, limb-, vision-, or brain-threatening etiologies from the more
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Acute headache in pregnant and post-partum patients: A clinical review
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2021, Emergency Medicine Clinics of North AmericaRetrospective Review of Pregnant Patients Presenting for Evaluation of Acute Neurologic Complaints
2021, Annals of Emergency MedicineCitation Excerpt :Pertinent guidelines addressing this issue are scarce. An abnormal neurologic examination result is often cited as a determining factor when radiographic imaging is considered for nonpregnant headache patients.12-17 Less than half of our patients with an abnormal neurologic examination result underwent imaging and approximately a quarter of those with a normal neurologic examination result underwent imaging.
Educational Case: Neisseria Meningitis
2021, Academic PathologyGastroprotective herbs for headache management in Persian medicine: A comprehensive review
2020, Journal of Integrative MedicineCitation Excerpt :Headache is one of the most commonly reported complaints in clinical practice. Unfortunately, in most cases, the pathophysiology and etiology of headache remain poorly understood and the treatment is limited to the management of symptoms [1,2]. A bidirectional communication system between the brain and gastrointestinal (GI) tract, known as the gut-brain axis, links gut and brain activities via neural, immune and endocrine pathways [3,4].
Approved by the ACEP Board of Directors, June 24, 2008
Supported by the Emergency Nurses Association, July 29, 2008