Main description:

Although headache is one of the most common complaints that patients bring to their clinicians, few physicians feel confident about its clinical evaluation and management. Is it a problem in its own right, or the presenting symptom of a serious medical condition? Loder, Rizzoli and Burch bring a practical case-based approach to this complex ailment, highlighting specific areas of diagnostic uncertainty in headache evaluation and treatment. Each case is taken from real-world clinical practice and reviews the diagnostic and treatment process in a systematic manner, identifying common challenges and pitfalls and describing newly issued treatment guidelines. Written in a question and answer format, this concise and useful guide in the Common Pitfalls series provides a step-by-step guide for everyday clinical practice, invaluable to anyone dealing with headache on a front-line basis.

Contents:

Preface; 1. Confusing one benign headache with another; 2. Mistaking primary headache for another condition; 3. Missing dangerous causes of headache; 4. Pitfalls in diagnostic testing: imaging and lumbar puncture; 5. Pitfalls in diagnostic testing: blood, urine and other tests; 6. When historical or examination findings are missed or misinterpreted; 7. Errors in management of acute headache; 8. Pitfalls in drug therapy to prevent headaches; 9. Pitfalls in nonpharmacologic treatment of headache; 10. Challenges and special situations in headache management; 11. Medicolegal pitfalls in headache management; Index.