From The New England Journal of Medicine For years, the stereotype of the neurologist was that of an academic recluse who concentrated on diagnosing disease and was then preoccupied with admiring it rather than effectively treating it. This image has changed dramatically in recent years, a change that has been formalized by the establishment of the subspecialty of critical care neurology. The neurologist is now seen as an aggressive interventionalist who manages life-threatening disorders of the nervous system. Critical care neurology is practiced in emergency rooms, in consultations in general medical and surgical intensive care units, in intermediary care units such as stroke units, and in specialized neurointensive care units where patients are frequently on life-support systems involving ventilators, intravascular lines, and monitoring and treatment devices. It is for the neurologist working in, or directing, a specialized neurointensive care unit that Wijdicks has written this book. Wijdicks had a thorough grounding in both intensive care medicine and neurointensive care while training in the Netherlands and later with Ropper's group in Boston. He is now codirector of the neurologic-neurosurgical intensive care unit at Saint Mary's Hospital, Mayo Medical Center, Rochester, Minnesota. His intent has been to produce a book that is readable and emphasizes the clinical and practical aspects of management in the neurointensive care unit. In this hardcover, single-author ed