Neurology and Neurosurgery Illustrated

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste time reading this, go & buy it now !
Review: This great book has joined my "Illustrative books collection" for the last 4 years. Being fond of illustrations, this book attracted me when I saw it first.
I haven't found any other illustrative book in Neurology and Neurosurgery which competes with this one!
Neurologic diseases have numerous signs and symptoms, not to mention the extensive neurological clinical exams. When I used to read some neurology books, I often didn't understand some of the features of a disease. This book has solved my problem !

- This book comes in 573 pages, in its 3nd edition (1997), and is published by Churchill Livingstone company. I hope there will be a new edition in the near future.

- It's classified into 5 sections:

Section 1 deals with General approach to history and examination.

Section 2: Investigations of the central & peripheral nervous systems. This section teachs you the basic physics and interpretation of the common investigations used e.g. x-rays, CT scan, MRI, ultrasound, angiography, radionucleotide imaging, EEG, Evoked potentials, EMG, LP, and others.

Section 3: clinical presentation, anatomical concepts and diagnostic approach. It covers many issues from headache, raised ICP, disorders of sleep, memory, speech & language, to brain death.

Section 4: Localized neurological disease and its management e.g. head injury, subdural and epidural hematomas, TIA, CVA, intra-cranial tumors, and movement disorders. It also deals with spinal cord roots diseases and peripheral nerve and muscle diseases.

Section 5: Multi-focal neurological disease and its management e.g. meningitis, myelitis, poliomyelitis, AIDS, demyelination diseases, neurocutaneous disease, and more !

This book will be very useful for medical students and residents in Internal Medicine or Neurology. 10/10

One last advise, try to buy most, if not all, the Illustrated series e.g. Neurology and Neurosurgery Illustrated, Obstetrics Illustrated, Gynecology Illustrated, Biochemistry Illustrated, Physiology Illustrated etc. They're extremely useful, and you won't regret buying them!

Rating:
Summary: Neurology and Neurosurgery Illustrated - A Review
Review: This is an excellent addition to anyone's medical library. It is especially useful to those doing primary care. The descriptions of the various disorders are clear-cut and consice in easy to understand descriptions. The illustrations further reinforce the text allowing one to better visualize the affliction, the related anatomy, and any diagnostic testing. A well worth investment.

Rating:
Summary: Simple and effective
Review: This review refers to the fourth edition published in 2004

William Holmes: Fourth year medical student: University of Glasgow. Scotland. UK

Neurology is a horrible subject to the medical student. A plethora of nerve pathways and a multitude of pathologies mean that students, when confronted with a neurological patient in the clinical setting, quickly reverse and run back up to the relative safety of cafeteria.

What this books attempts successfully to do, is to remove the teaching barriers of neurology, making neurology not a matter of guess work but reasoning from a solid background of neurological principles. This book achieves this by removing itself from complex diagrams and ancient terms, instead adopting an approach that at first glance seems rather basic. Its layout involves a multitude of illustrations ranging from the simple to the more complex that are not used to complicate, but to provide valuable aids in memorising ultimately making learning the complexities of neurology much easier. The diagrams are all aided by text that is written in note-form, keeping only to the pertinent points and saving the reader valuable time trudging through unnecessary prose.
A prime example of this is seen in the "limb weakness" section. Rather than attempting to narrate what occurs when a lesion is proximal or distal - a fault of mainly neurology books - this book adopts simplified diagrams to convey the points that are relevant and vital. Also, clinical features of a condition are kept to only those that are classical to that pathology and more importantly, they are all explained with relation to the pathology. Together it means the important clinical features are remembered and can be reasoned in-front of a belligerent consultant (much to their annoyance).

This book is so well written and illustrated, that your neurology notes from exam revision will be more or less this book written word for word.

The only minus point is that on first glance this book looks like a basic neurology text that is only suitable for a first year. Upon reading however, this is quickly shown to be false and it actually provides a valuable source for all those involved in medical care, irrespective of qualification.

Its layout is simple, easy to use and allows the book to be used as either a quick reference or as a comphrensive neurology book. Most importantly, the style of the book means that you remember the facts for the bedside, and retain them come exam time. Few medical textbooks can make that claim