Central nervous system (CNS) failure represents a spectrum of disease ranging from mild neurological impairment that may have motor, sensory, visual, speech, cognitive manifestations, or a combination thereof, to comatose states and brain death. This article summarizes the common causes of CNS failure and analyzes the role of clinical, radiological, laboratory, and other ancillary testing in establishing the underlying diagnosis and assessing severity of CNS failure in each condition; we also comment on various treatment options for each of the causes of CNS failure.
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