Drop attack

Article summary

A drop attack is a sudden fall without loss of consciousness. A drop attack has been defined as "a collapse or fall with little warning, following which the patient lies motionless or nearly motionless for a variable time, but often with rapid recovery to their normal state". However, the understanding of what constitutes a drop attack varies widely between authors. Drop attacks stem from diverse mechanisms, including orthopedic causes (for example, leg weakness and knee instability), hemodynamic causes (for example, transient vertebrobasilar insufficiency, a type of interruption of blood flow to the brain), and neurologic causes (such as epileptic seizures or unstable vestibular function). The term "drop attack", also known as "cryptogenic drop attack" or "La maladie des genoux bleus"; is used to categorize otherwise unexplained falls from a wide variety of causes and is considered ambiguous medical terminology; drop attacks are currently reported much less often than in the past, possibly as a result of better diagnostic precision. The common cardiovascular causes of drop attacks include syncope (a sudden transient loss of awareness due to reduced blood flow to the brain), orthostatic hypotension (which is often precipitated by medications), and arrhythmias (abnormalities of the heart beat).…

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