A Handbook of Neurological Investigations in Children [King; Stephenson - Wiley - Blackwell]

Neurological disorders in children are common: families want to know what is wrong, why it happened, and whether it will happen again. Management and treatment depend on establishing the diagnosis, which usually requires investigations, but the number of possible neurological investigations is now very large indeed, and uncritical investigations may be seriously misleading and often costly. This book, based on the authors’ vast combined personal experience, gives practical guidance on how to target any specific condition with the minimum of tests. Part 1 is a brief distillation of advice on clinical history and examination, introducing the problems that beset those who deal with neurological disorders in childhood. Part 2 outlines the investigations available to solve these diagnostic problems. Part 3 takes a problem-oriented approach to the most appropriate investigations in the various clinical scenarios that may present to the practitioner: the starting point is the patient’s presentation, not the diagnosis. Throughout, vignettes of real cases help to illustrate the use of the tests in different clinical situations.