Welcome to the Emergency Medicine Cases podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Anton Hellman, bringing you Canada's brightest minds in emergency medicine from EMC studios in Toronto.

EM cases is part of Shremi, the Schwartz-Riseman Emergency Medicine Institute. That's the nonprofit organization dedicated to improving EM care through high-quality research and education. The opinions expressed on this podcast are intended for general information and educational purposes only and should not be used to diagnose treat or prevent any medical condition, nor should they be used as a substitute for medical advice from a qualified practicing physician. Unless stated otherwise, the opinions expressed by the hosts or guests are made in their individual capacity, not on behalf of the Institute nor medicine cases. Whenever I pick up a patient in the ED, I'm always delighted to

see the chief complaint of weakness. It's almost as exciting as the chief complaint of dizziness,

but not quite as exhilarating as the chief complaint of weak and dizzy. Today, with the help of

Ed doc George Perferus, who's won more teaching awards than any

doc I've known in my 20-plus year career.

Welcome, Dr. Perfuris.

Thanks, Dr. Helmut.

Nice to be back.

And also Dr. Roy Baskind, neurologist at North York General, creator of a brand new neuropodcast called The Cephalopod, which you can find

at thecephalopod.ca.combe, Dr. Baskin?

Thanks, Anton. Happy to be here.

Well, with the help of these gentlemen, we'll turn the assessment of the weak patient into a

satisfying, frustration-free experience for you by laying out a simple approach and

feeding you the key clinical pearls that will help you clinch the diagnosis. Now, we're not going

to cover generalized malaise or fatigue from dehydration or anemia or sepsis. We're not going to

cover hypoglycemia, polypharmacy, or medication side effects. We're not going to cover hypoglycemia, polypharmacy, or medication side effects.

We're not going to get into the detail of stroke, traumatic spinal cord injuries or chronic

neurogenerative disorders, all of which can present with the chief complaint of weakness.

What we are going to do is we are going to throw out the word weakness and instead zero in on the specific symptoms of loss of true neuromascular strength.

We're going to dig into the patterns of decreased true neuromuscular strength and how they can narrow our differential.

We're going to discuss key associated symptoms that will narrow our differential even further.

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