Neurological exam pearls, from a veterinary neurologist

During the Fetch dvm360 Conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey; Neil Mittelman, DVM, DACVIM, sat down with dvm360 to talk about his lecture “Neurological Examination from Head to Tail.” During the interview, Mittelman also offered his top 3 tips for veterinarians that are conducting a neurological exam.

Below is a partial transcript:

Neil Mittelman, DVM, DACVIM: So, the biggest thing is to be as thorough as possible and try and evaluate all the important parts of the examination.

But also, to get an accurate history is part of that. The neurological examination needs to be performed in its entirety, but also not to forget their basic physical examination, because a lot can be garnered in terms of information for ultimately making a diagnosis, having known what their vital parameters are and what the history was from the owner.

The last thing is not to get overly intimidated by doing a neuro exam. You know, even the concept of performing a neurological evaluation can be overwhelming for owners, for their pets, and for clinicians alike, and sometimes it doesn't fit into a tiny box of ‘this problem is x’ or ‘this problem is y,’ so to be as thorough as possible, not to forget the basic thorough examination that we do normally, and to try and be as thorough as possible, but if you can't put a bow on it and say exactly what it is, just to write exactly what you see. That's the best we can do, and then we put that information together.