Laboratory tests to be conducted include urine toxicology, blood glucose, a basic metabolic panel evaluating kidney function, or a complete metabolic panel evaluating liver function, EKG, chest x-rays, and pregnancy screening.The eyes may show bleeding in the retina, an exudate, cotton-wool spots, scattered splinter hemorrhages, or swelling of the optic disc called papilledema. Causes
Many factors and causes are contributory in hypertensive crises. The most common cause is patients with diagnosed, chronic hypertension who have discontinued anti hypertensive medications.Other common causes of hypertensive crises are autonomic hyperactivity such as pheochromocytoma, collagen-vascular diseases, drug use particularly stimulants, cocaine and amphetamines and their substituted analogues, monoamine oxidase inhibitors or food-drug interactions, spinal cord disorders, glomerulonephritis, head trauma, neoplasias, preeclampsia and eclampsia, hyperthyroidism and renovascular hypertension. People withdrawing from medications such as clonidine or beta-blockers have been frequently found to develop hypertensive crises. It is important to note that these conditions exist outside of hypertensive emergency, in that patients diagnosed with these conditions are at increased risk of hypertensive emergencies or end organ failure. Pathophysiology
The pathophysiology of hypertensive emergency is not well understood. Failure of normal autoregulation and an abrupt rise in systemic vascular resistance are typical initial components of the disease process.Hypertensive emergency pathophysiology includes:
Abrupt increase in systemic vascular resistance, likely related to humoral vasoconstrictors
Endothelial injury and dysfunction
Fibrinoid necrosis of the arterioles
Deposition of platelets and fibrin
Breakdown of normal autoregulatory functionThe resulting ischemia prompts further release of vasoactive substances including prostaglandins, free radicals, and thrombotic/mitotic growth factors, completing a vicious cycle of inflammatory changes.
Athetosis is caused by lesions in several brain areas such as the hippocampus and the motor thalamus, as well as the corpus striatum; therefore children during the developmental age could possibly suffer from severe communication deficits such as speech impairment, hearing loss, and failed or delayed acquirement of sitting balance, although most people with athetosis have normal or near-normal intelligence. Causes
Athetosis is a symptom primarily caused by the marbling, or degeneration of the basal ganglia. This degeneration is most commonly caused by complications at birth or by Huntingtons disease, in addition to rare cases in which the damage may also arise later in life due to stroke or trauma. The two complications of particular interest are intranatal asphyxia and neonatal jaundice. Asphyxia
Asphyxia directly causes basal ganglia damage due to lack of oxygen and therefore, insufficient nutrient supply. The lesions caused by asphyxia are most prominent on the caudate nucleus and the putamen. However, a less-studied consequence of the resulting hypoxia is its effect on the concentrations of the neurotransmitter dopamine within the synapses of neurons in the basal ganglia. Hypoxia leads to an increase in the extracellular dopamine levels and therefore, an increase in the activity of the dopaminergic neurons. Furthermore, this increase in extracellular concentration is not caused by an increase in the neurotransmitter synthesis, but instead on inhibiting its reuptake back into the neurons and glial cells. Therefore, there is an increased dopaminergic effect as dopamine remains in the synapse at higher concentrations leading to additional post-synaptic response.