Althoughgeneral anesthetics areused for approximately 21millionpatients per year in the United States,1 the molecular and cellular mechanisms by which anesthetics produce loss of waking consciousness are poorly understood. The complexity of consciousness and relatively imprecise clinical signs that are used to evaluate the depth of anesthesia are significant limitations for the study of conscio...

Patients who have had an episode of altered awareness and are subsequently brought to the hospital for evaluation are common[9] amounting to more than 6% of all emergency room (ER) admissions. One of the key elements in properly evaluating these patients is to perform a good history. The history can come from a number of different sources including the patient, family, and/or others present at ...

Postconcussional disorder (PCD) has been described in the psychiatric, neurological, neuropsychological, and rehabilitation medicine literature for many years. PCD has recently been introduced into DSM-IV, appearing in an appendix that contains a number of proposals for new categories and axes that were suggested for possible inclusion in DSM-IV. There are some major difficulties with the propo...