We have defined the infusion dose requirements of propofol to suppress consciousness and response to a variety of graded non-noxious and noxious stimuli in 52 unpremedicated patients aged 16-40 yr and 32 patients aged 41-65 yr. They were allocated to receive one of five loading dose-infusion schemes designed to establish stable conditions covering the range from wakefulness, through sedation, t...

Acute or chronic otitis media can cause intracranial complications, one of the most serious being brain abscess. Empirical antibiotic treatment and proper surgical management should be considered to avoid fatal consequences. However, proper extent and optimal timing of surgical intervention are still matters of debate. We present a case of a 31-year-old man who presented with acutely altered me...

Momentary sensations of impending loss of consciousness may occur, particularly when a person is relaxed, without any obvious cardiac, cerebral vascular, or epileptic basis. These episodes may be a quasiepileptic phenomenon such as déjà vu and night starts and seem to have a benign prognosis.

OBJECTIVE To assess the accuracy of eyewitness observations of transient loss of consciousness. METHODS Two sequential cohorts of psychology students unexpectedly viewed videos of a generalized tonic-clonic seizure (n = 125) and of reflex syncope (n = 104) during a lecture on an unrelated subject. Directly afterward, the students filled in a multiple-choice questionnaire regarding muscle tone...

Some aspects of neurological care require as much art as science, and this can apply to diagnosis, provision of long-term care, and in tailoring medication to individuals. Transient loss of consciousness (t-LOC) is a common medical complaint, and eliciting the cause of such events is an important and sometimes demanding task. The difficulties in t-LOC diagnosis are increased by the usually inco...

T patient was a 49-year-old man with no significant past medical history, normal body mass index, and normal oral/ nasal airway anatomy, who presented with a 4-month history of episodic loss of consciousness while working as a cemetery caretaker. The patient lost consciousness while using a riding lawnmower at the cemetery during his morning landscaping duties; this caused him to lean forward i...