Autonomic Disorders in Clinical Practice

This book is focused on a clinical-based diagnostic approach of autonomic dysfunctions, highlighting main diagnostic tools and pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapies available nowadays. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is a subcomponent of the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and dysfunction of one or more subdivisions of the ANS, when accompanying other diseases, is linked to a worse prognosis of the latter. In some circumstances or when severe, dysfunction of ANS itself results in symptoms and disability. A myriad of factors can cause autonomic dysfunction and more than one can concur even in the same patient; due to the expansive nature of the ANS, patients can be affected by a wide range of conditions. Each chapter is characterized by a similar structure and is devoted to a different dysfunction. For each pathology, the book offers the essential information on mechanisms of action, treatments and outcomes. Written by experts in the research of these disorders, the volume addresses primarily Neurologists, but will be a useful tool also for Gastroenterologists, Ophthalmologists, Urologists, Cardiologists and Internal medicine specialists.

About the Author

Max Hilz currently co-chairs the Autonomic Nervous System Subspecialty Panel of the European Academy of Neurology, EAN. He also is Past-President of the German Autonomic Society, Past-President of the European Federation of Autonomic Societies, and Past-Chair of the Autonomic Section of the AmericanAcademy of Neurology. He published more than 300 original and review articles in peer-reviewed journals and chapters in textbooks and presented his work at several hundred scientific conferences.

Prof. Hilz is experienced in the examination of small nerve fiber diseases and disorders of the autonomic nervous system, including hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathies, diabetic neuropathies, and Fabry disease, and central autonomic disorders.