Acute Medicine | Blackout or collapse 04 knowledge A

History in Collapse
Session Overview
Description
This session covers how to take a history for a patient who presents with collapse.

By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Summarise the important points when obtaining a history for a patient who presents with collapse

‘Collapse’ is a common problem encountered in Acute Medicine and has many causes.

Collapse is a non-technical term, meaning, ‘the tumbling down or falling in of a structure’. In medicine ‘collapse ?cause’ is a commonly used term, and refers to an episode of transient loss of consciousness before a thorough evaluation has been made.

‘Collapse’ encompasses a wide range of presentations and the role of the doctor is to convert this lay term into a medical diagnosis.

The main component of the initial evaluation in any patient with ‘collapse’ is the history.