title: [Causes of emergency dizziness stratified by etiology].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To explore the causes of emergency dizziness stratified to improve the diagnostic efficiency.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 1 857 cases of dizziness at our emergency department were collected and their etiologies stratified by age and gender.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The top three diagnoses were benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV, 31.7%), hypertension (24.0%) and posterior circulation ischemia (PCI, 20.5%). Stratified by age, the main causes of dizziness included BPPV (n = 6), migraine-associated vertigo (n = 2), unknown cause (n = 1) for the group of <18 years; BPPV (51.5%), migraine-associated vertigo (14.5%) and neurosis (7.3%) for 18-44 years; BPPV (36.8%), hypertension (22.4%) and migraine-associated vertigo (11.2%) for 45-59 years; hypertension (30.8%), PCI (29.8%) and BPPV (22.9%) for 60-74 years; PCI (30.7%), hypertension (28.6%) and BPPV (25.5%) for 75-92 years. BPPV, migraine and neurosis were more common in females while hypertension and PCI predominated in males (all P < 0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  As the main causes of emergency dizziness, BPPV, PCI, hypertension, neurosis and migraine showed the following significant demographic features: BPPV, PCI, hypertension, neurosis and migraine may be the main causes of dizziness. BPPV should be considered initially when vertigo was triggered repeatedly by positional change, especially for young and middle-aged women. And the other common causes of dizziness were migraine-associated vertigo, neurosis and Meniere's disease.Hypertension should be screened firstly in middle-aged and elderly patients presenting mainly with head heaviness and stretching. In elders with dizziness, BPPV is second in constituent ratio to PCI and hypertension.In middle-aged and elderly patients with dizziness, psychological factors should be considered and diagnosis and treatment should be offered timely.
authors.affiliation: Emergency Center of Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Jingxi Campus, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100043, China.
authors.forename: Wenying
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Qiao
authors.forename: Jianguo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Email: zenghong2708@sina.com.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.forename: Yugeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Weihua
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.forename: Honghong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.forename: Changqing
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004244:Dizziness / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension; D008297:Male; D008575:Meniere Disease; D008875:Middle Aged; D010808:Physical Examination; D014717:Vertigo; D055815:Young Adult