3.3 Diseases and the purpose of consultation
The common purposes for inviting urgent neurologic in-hospital consultations were as follows: diagnosis unknown (80%), assisted treatment (14%), and disputed cases (6%) (Table 1). Table 1 shows other, less common reasons for applying for urgent consultation.
[Table 1 here]
The diseases in urgent neurologic in-hospital consultation can be divided into three categories: nervous system diseases, nonnervous system diseases, and unknown diseases. Diseases frequently requiring neurologic consultation included acute cerebrovascular disease, epilepsy, intracranial infection, metabolic encephalopathy, infectious toxic encephalopathy, ischemic and hypoxic encephalopathy; these accounted for 58.4% of the total urgent consultations. The older the age, the more frequent the application for urgent consultation. Non-neurological diseases accounted for 10.4% of the total number of emergency cases, in which the internal environment was disordered and the basic diseases were poor, and anxiety states were the most common. Unknown diseases accounted for 11.8%. There are many reasons for these conditions, including highly complex diseases and patients’ refusal to further examination.(Fig2)
Fig.2 Departments with non neurologic diseases in urgent neurologic consultation