Neurological critical care

Of utmost importance in the practice of neurological critical care is the t reatment of cerebral edema, when possible, and the control of life-threaten ing seizures. In this regard, severe traumatic head injury and refractory s tatus epilepticus are useful clinical therapeutic paradigms. Evidence-based treatment established for these conditions has, by necessity, a wider appl ication to other much less frequent causes of coma and acute neurological i llness managed in the intensive therapy unit. Therefore, this review of ped iatric neurocritical care literature in 1999 highlights central clinical re ports of the medical management of severe traumatic brain injury, the benzo diazepines used in the treatment of status epilepticus, and the emerging or recently appreciated encephalopathies occurring in children. Curr Opin Ped iatr 2000, 12:222-226 (C) 2000 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Inc.