Altered Mental Status (AMS)
Posted: December 14, 2011 Filed under: Podcasts 3 Comments »This podcast will discuss how to approach the patient with altered mental status. These patient present a special challenge because there are a ton of reasons why a patient may be altered. As always, we’ll review the major points in the history and exam, the differential diagnosis, and a few points on management.
If you haven’t done so already, please fill out the EM Basic survey. Also in this episode is a reivew of a new emergency medicine iPhone App (palmEM) and an FYI concerning the last podcast on MI and ACS.
[...] This month’s podcast gives us a simple guide to approaching the patient with Altered Mental Status (AMS). [...]
First thing to check is pulse ox, though probably a given, was never mentioned in podcast and hypoxemia is an all too common cause of delirium/encephalopathy. This is a great podcast to listen to, keep up the good work!
Michael
That’s a great point and I should have emphasized it more. While I always stress the importance of addressing the vitals up front- I didn’t specifically talk about hypoxia. Thanks for bringing that up and thanks for listening.
Steve