Neurological Disorders

Neurological Disorders is the latest and fifth monograph in the series on management and treatment in major clinical specialties or patient groups. Each book is complete in'its own right and has been prepared by practising physicians with an interest in treatment and management, together with scientists involved in clinical research. The volumes are intended to fill a gap between standard textbooks of medicine and therapeutics and research reviews, symposia and original articles in superspecialist fields. It is the aim of the series to give authoritative up-to-date advice on treatment and management which will be of use to both specialists and nonspecialists and to allow recent advances in pathophysiol- ogy and developments in treatment to be viewed in the context of contemporary clinical practice. The approach is intentionally by the minimum number didactic. Each volume has been written of authors to ensure a degree of continuity and uniformity of style. The first four volumes dealt respectively with gastrointestinal diseases, rheumatic diseases, treatment in the elderly and car- diovascular disease. The present volume covers neurological diseases. Chapter 1 is an introduction to drugs and the nervous system. It reviews the chemical basis of neurotransmission and mechanisms of drug action in neurological disease. There follows a series of chapters discussing patient management in general and drug treatment in particular in common neurological problems presen- ting in general medical practice. These include headache, cerebral vascular disease, epilepsy and the movement disorders.