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Geriatric Emergency Medicine pp 147–161Cite as

Syncope in Older People in the Emergency Department

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Abstract

Syncope is a transient loss of consciousness caused by a brief loss in the cerebral blood flow. Although syncope is one of the most common symptoms of older patients presenting to the emergency department (ED), the origins or causes of syncope in older patients may present differently than in younger populations, and the underlying etiology is often challenging to discern. The syncope workup should be tailored to the patient’s presentation. Disposition should be predicated on the results of the initial evaluation and risk factors for adverse outcomes. This chapter reviews the background, epidemiology, etiologies, evaluation, and disposition considerations of older patients with syncope.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Emergency Medicine, Mount Auburn Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Nissa J. Ali MD, MEd

  2. Department of Emergency Medicine, Tufts Medical Center and Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA

    Nissa J. Ali MD, MEd

  3. Department of Geriatrics, CHRU-Nancy, Nancy, F-54000, France

    Laure Joly MD, PhD

  4. Department of Emergency Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Shamai A. Grossman MD, MS

  5. Department of Emergency Medicine, Shaare Zedek Medical Center and Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

    Shamai A. Grossman MD, MS

Authors
  1. Nissa J. Ali MD, MEd
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  2. Laure Joly MD, PhD
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  3. Shamai A. Grossman MD, MS
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nissa J. Ali MD, MEd .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Emergency Department, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland

    Christian Nickel

  2. Department of Emergency Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Abdelouahab Bellou

  3. Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

    Simon Conroy

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Ali, N.J., Joly, L., Grossman, S.A. (2018). Syncope in Older People in the Emergency Department. In: Nickel, C., Bellou, A., Conroy, S. (eds) Geriatric Emergency Medicine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19318-2_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19318-2_10

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