We've all had headaches, but not often severe enough to prompt us to seek help in an Emergency Department.
In our practice 10% of patients who do present to the ED with a primary presentation of headache will have serious pathology and our job as Emergency Physicians is to work out who these are. Key to this is actively ruling out the life-threatening and life-changing diagnoses:
Subarachnoid HaemorrhageMeningitisTumours and Space Occupying LesionsTemporal ArteritisListen to Simon and Iain discuss how to approach these patients here
Headaches at Life in the Fast Lane - a great summary from the LiTFL crew
NICE Guidelines (NCG150) - diagnosis and management of headaches; there's a flowchart and some red flags although you could read the St Emlyn's summary here!
Headache from the Flipped EM Classroom
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