Neurology is a branch of medicine dealing with disorders of the nervous system. A neurologist is a physician specializing in neurology and trained to investigate or diagnose and treat neurological disorders
While neurology is a non-surgical specialty, its corresponding surgical specialty is a neurosurgery
Significant overlap occurs between the fields of neurology and psychiatry, with the boundary between the two disciplines and the conditions they treat being somewhat nebulous. Neurological disorders include
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Aneurysm
- Back pain
- Bell’s palsy
- Birth defects of the brain and spinal cord
- Brain injury
- Brain tumor
- Cerebral palsy
- Chronic fatigue syndrome
- Concussion
- Dementia
- Disk disease of the neck and lower back
- Dizziness
- Epilepsy
- Guillain-Barré syndrome
- Headaches and migraines
- Multiple sclerosis
- Muscular dystrophy
- Neuralgia
- Neuropathy
- Neuromuscular and related diseases
- Parkinson’s disease
- Psychiatric conditions (severe depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder)
- Scoliosis
- Seizures
- Spinal cord injury
- Spinal deformity and disorders
- Spine tumor
- Stroke
- Vertigo
Common procedures performed by neurologists include lumbar puncture, electroneurography, electromyography, electroencephalogram, tension test, neural biopsies, angiography, imaging tests such as CT, MRI, PET, etc, genetic testing, laboratory tests.
A primary care doctor might refer someone to a neurologist if they have symptoms that indicate a neurological condition, such as:
- frequent or severe headaches
- muscle weakness
- confusion
- dizziness
- loss of coordination
- partial or complete paralysis
- sensory changes that affect the sense of touch, vision, smell, or taste