Diagnosing acute headache.
Acute onset headache is common. Most such patients do not have a sinister underlying cause, but some do. The key to deciding who requires investigation and who does not lies in the history. All patients presenting with headache maximal immediately or within a few minutes and lasting longer than an hour, require investigations (computed tomography brain scan +/- lumbar puncture) to exclude subarachnoid haemorrhage.
Davenport
Richard
R
Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh. rjd@skull.dcn.ed.ac.uk
D000208:Acute Disease; D000328:Adult; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D006261:Headache / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology* / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans