title: Headache emergencies: diagnosis and management.
abstract: Headaches are a common reason for visiting a health care provider. Headaches are at times symptomatic of an underlying process that requires prompt diagnosis and urgent treatment to reduce threats to life or limb. In this article, the authors review the 6 most common presentations for worrisome headache and discuss the differential diagnosis. Careful attention to patients' history and physical examination and a thoughtful approach to the differential diagnosis will guide diagnostic work-up and management. Although benign causes of headache are much more common than malignant secondary processes, thorough management of the acute headache requires excluding malignant secondary processes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, 111 East 210th Street, Bronx, New York 10467, USA. bwfriedmanmd@gmail.com
authors.forename: Benjamin W
authors.initials: BW
authors.lastname: Friedman
authors.forename: Richard B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Lipton
mesh_terms: D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000150:complications*; D002561:Cerebrovascular Disorders / Q000150:complications*; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D004630:Emergencies; D006261:Headache / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D010808:Physical Examination