title: Emergency neurological life support: approach to the patient with coma.
abstract: Coma is an acute failure of neuronal systems governing arousal and awareness and represents a neurological emergency. When encountering a comatose patient, the clinician must have an organized approach to detect easily remedial causes, prevent ongoing neurologic injury, and determine a hierarchy of diagnostic tests, treatments, and neuromonitoring. Coma was chosen as an Emergency Neurological Life Support (ENLS) protocol because timely medical and surgical interventions can be life-saving, and the initial work-up of such patients is critical to establishing a correct diagnosis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, VA, USA. jshuff505@me.com
authors.forename: J Stephen
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Huff
authors.forename: Robert D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Stevens
authors.forename: Scott D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Weingart
authors.forename: Wade S
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Smith
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003128:Coma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology*; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D009460:Neurologic Examination / Q000379:methods; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed