Presentations
- Altered conscious state
- Antenatal detection of fetal:
- brain abnormalities
- neuromuscular conditions
- Hypertonia
- Hypotonia
- Pain and distress, including:
- exposure to prenatal substances
- postoperative
- Seizures
- Structural abnormalities, including:
- head shape abnormalities
- macrocephaly
- microcephaly
- spinal dysraphism
Conditions
- Cerebellar hypoplasia
- Developmental malformations / deformation of the skeletal system
- Developmental malformations of the brain and spinal cord, including:
- Hydrocephalus
- Neonatal abstinence syndrome
- Neonatal encephalopathy, including:
- hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE)
- other causes
- Neonatal stroke
- Preterm brain injury, including:
- intraventricular haemorrhage
- post-haemorrhagic ventricular dilatation
- white matter injury, including:
- periventricular leukomalacia
- Seizure disorders and epilepsy
- Structural neurological problems, such as:
- absent corpus callosum
- ventriculomegaly
For each presentation and condition, Advanced Trainees will know how to:
Synthesise
- recognise the clinical presentation
- identify relevant epidemiology, prevalence, pathophysiology, and clinical science
- take a comprehensive clinical history
- conduct an appropriate examination
- establish a differential diagnosis
- plan and arrange appropriate investigations
- consider the impact of illness and disease on patients and their quality of life when
developing a management plan
Manage
- provide evidence-based management
- prescribe therapies tailored to patients’ needs and conditions
- recognise potential complications of disease and its management, and initiate
preventative strategies
- involve multidisciplinary teams
Consider other factors
- identify individual and social factors and the impact of these on diagnosis and
management
For each presentation and condition, Advanced Trainees will know how to:
Synthesise
- recognise the clinical presentation
- identify relevant epidemiology, prevalence, pathophysiology, and clinical science
- take a comprehensive clinical history
- conduct an appropriate examination
- establish a differential diagnosis
- plan and arrange appropriate investigations
- consider the impact of illness and disease on patients and their quality of life when
developing a management plan
Manage
- provide evidence-based management
- prescribe therapies tailored to patients’ needs and conditions
- recognise potential complications of disease and its management, and initiate
preventative strategies
- involve multidisciplinary teams
Consider other factors
- identify individual and social factors and the impact of these on diagnosis and
management
- Impact of exposure to drugs on the developing brain, such as drugs of addiction and other commonly
used drugs
- Impact on the developing brain in the preterm infant, and of postnatal conditions on the brain, such
as hypoxia
- Malformations / Deformation of the:
- brain
- skeletal system
- spinal cord
- Normal physiology and fetal / embryological development of the nervous system
- Pathophysiology and prognosis of:
- hypotonia and neuromuscular disorders
- neonatal encephalopathy
- neonatal neurological conditions
- neonatal stroke
- periventricular haemorrhage
- prenatal exposure to substances of addiction and other maternal medications or environmental
problems
- seizure disorders
- white matter injury
- Pharmacological principles of:
- medications and treatments for newborn withdrawal
- medications and treatments for pain
- medications for seizures
- Treatment modalities for hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE)
Clinical assessment tools
- Amplitude integrated electroencephalography (aEEG)
- Electrophysiological studies, such as:
- electroencephalogram (EEG)
- electromyograms
- Evaluation for:
- encephalopathy, such as:
- Sarnat Score
- Thompson score
- neonatal pain, such as:
- Premature Infant Pain Profile (PIPP)
- neonatal withdrawal, such as:
- Eat, Sleep, and Console
- Finnegan Neonatal Abstinence Scoring System
- Imaging modalities, such as:
- brain MRI
- cranial ultrasound
- Microarray and exome sequencing
- Neurodevelopmental assessments, such as:
- Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler development
Procedures
- Lumbar punctures
- Neuroprotective treatments, such as cooling
- Point-of-care cerebral ultrasound examination
- Ventricular drainage
- Research interest in emerging evidence of therapies for HIE
