title: Summer heat illnesses. Conditions that range from mild to fatal.
abstract: Heat illness varies in severity from mild to life-threatening. Basic treatment includes rapid cooling and restoration of fluid and electrolyte balance. Most patients can be treated definitively in the field. Some require additional therapy in a hospital emergency department, and a few need hospitalization. Not all hyperthermic patients have heatstroke. Neuroleptic malignant syndrome is a possibility, or a patient with a febrile illness may also present on a hot day. Careful evaluation is therefore necessary before the diagnosis of simple heatstroke is considered acceptable.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, Hennepin County Medical Center, Minneapolis.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sterner
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001831:Body Temperature; D017679:Cryotherapy; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D004630:Emergencies; D005440:Fluid Therapy; D006359:Heat Exhaustion / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D009459:Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome / Q000209:etiology / Q000628:therapy; D005082:Physical Exertion; D051381:Rats; D012307:Risk Factors; D013474:Sunstroke / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*