Headache emergencies: Diagnosis and management

Headaches are a common reason for visiting a health care provider. Headaches are at times symptomatic of an underlying process that requires prompt diagnosis and urgent treatment to reduce threats to life or limb. In this article, the authors review the 6 most common presentations for worrisome headache and discuss the differential diagnosis. Careful attention to patients' history and physical examination and a thoughtful approach to the differential diagnosis will guide diagnostic work-up and management. Although benign causes of headache are much more common than malignant secondary processes, thorough management of the acute headache requires excluding malignant secondary processes.