title: Organ failure: central nervous system.
abstract: Central nervous system (CNS) failure represents a spectrum of disease ranging from mild neurological impairment that may have motor, sensory, visual, speech, cognitive manifestations, or a combination thereof, to comatose states and brain death. This article summarizes the common causes of CNS failure and analyzes the role of clinical, radiological, laboratory, and other ancillary testing in establishing the underlying diagnosis and assessing severity of CNS failure in each condition; we also comment on various treatment options for each of the causes of CNS failure.
authors: Department of Anesthesiology/Critical Care Medicine, Neurology, Neurosurgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21287, USA.
authors: Neeraj
authors: N
authors: Naval
authors: Satish
authors: S
authors: Chandolu
authors: Marek
authors: M
authors: Mirski
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002493:Central Nervous System Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000628:therapy; D016638:Critical Illness; D006801:Humans; D009102:Multiple Organ Failure / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index