Articles Tagged With: diagnosis
-
Undiagnosed Dementia a Risk for Older Patients
Patients with dementia may be at greater risk of hospitalization and ED visits, yet many are undiagnosed or unaware of their dementia diagnosis. When patients are undiagnosed, or are unaware of a dementia diagnosis, they might lack needed caregiver support or struggle to manage their diseases because no one recognizes their cognitive impairment. -
Acute Muscle Weakness in Children: Acute Flaccid Myelitis or Guillain-Barré Syndrome?
Compared to children with Guillain-Barré syndrome, children with acute flaccid myelitis have a more rapid presentation to nadir of weakness, fewer sensory abnormalities, and an inflammatory spinal fluid early in the course.
-
Screening and Diagnosis of Chagas Disease in the United States
Chagas disease is an important public health problem in the United States. An expert panel has made a series of specific recommendations for screening for and diagnosis of Chagas disease in at-risk groups.
-
Recognizing Stroke Mimics: A Guide for Primary Care
Acute ischemic stroke is a common and significant cause of mortality and morbidity in the United States, ranking fifth among all causes of death. However, timely recognition and treatment is complicated by the fact that there are multiple conditions that mimic acute ischemic stroke. A comprehensive review suggested that approximately 74% of patients presenting with apparent acute stroke symptoms ultimately were diagnosed with stroke, thus indicating that 26% of patients had their symptoms produced by “stroke mimics.” Therefore, prompt diagnosis is complicated by a multitude of stroke mimic etiologies, including structural intracranial abnormalities, infection, syncope, vertigo, seizure, and migraine patterns, as well as underlying psychiatric causes and demyelinating diseases.
-
Malaria: Look Beyond the Blood to the Spleen
The diagnosis of malaria depends on detection of the parasite, but the spleen is where the money is. -
Pitfalls in the Diagnosis of CIDP
Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy is commonly misdiagnosed. It is important to adhere to established diagnostic criteria and to regularly re-evaluate all patients given this diagnosis.
-
Diagnostic Errors Often Prompt Patients to Sue
The main reason patients sue is for an adverse event caused by delayed, missed, or failed diagnosis. Another reason patients sue is due to failure of communication, which led to an adverse event. Efforts to convey a sense of caring can reduce the likelihood of a lawsuit. -
Streamlined Lyme Disease Guidelines for Frontline Providers
With the peak period for Lyme disease approaching, new guidelines help clinicians understand when to consider the ailment in patients who present to the ED, how to properly diagnosis a case, and how to treat.
-
Report: Record Year-Over-Year Decline in Cancer Death Rate
Fewer smokers, better detection and treatment methods credited with saving lives.
-
The Basic Elements of Healthcare Reimbursement, Part 2
This month will continue the discussion of healthcare reimbursement by third-party payers. We began last month with a review of the diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) and associated terminology. We will continue by reviewing how medical records are coded followed by the new MS-DRGs implemented in 2007.