Acute Diarrhea | Emergency Medicine

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Acute Diarrhea | Emergency Medicine
A minimum of three or more loose watery stools a day is defined as diarrhea. Causative agents of diarrhea can be infectious and non-infectious. Diarrhea due to Infection is referred to acute diarrhea. Acute Infectious Diarrhea pathophysiology is discussed while talking about the anatomic essentials.

In order to proceed further with acute diarrhea, it is important to confirm the diagnosis by first taking the history. Some of the factors which are considered while taking history are the assessment of character of stools, temporal characteristics, exogenous factors, associated symptoms, and medical history i.e. presence of Diabetes Mellitus, Human Immunodeficiency Virus /AIDS.

To avoid confusion for medical students in understanding diarrhea, its differential diagnosis is also discussed. Acute diarrhea differential diagnosis includes the Infectious Diseases caused by Aeromonas species, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Rotavirus, Campylobacter, and Giardia lamblia. On the other hand, Intestinal Obstruction, inflammatory Bowel Diseases, lactose intolerance, and several others are the non-infectious diseases that are differentially diagnosed from diarrhea and are discussed in other Emergency Medicine lecture videos.

Diagnostic testing includes the complete Blood count that is explained as standard test in Emergency Medicine lectures online. Other specific tests for this disease are stool cultures, Giardia-specific Antigens (GSA), and Clostridium difficile toxins A and B.