Differential diagnosis of vertigo and dizziness in the emergency department.

Conclusions: To establish a system of differential diagnosis for vertigo/dizziness at the Emergency Department (ED), careful history-taking of complications and examinations of nystagmus should be helpful and therefore prepared by ED staff.

Objectives: Vertigo/dizziness could come from various kinds of organs for equilibrium, sometimes resulting in an emergency due to the central origin. In the present study, we checked patients' background data at the ED in advance of a definitive diagnosis at the Department of Otolaryngology and examined the significance of the correlation between the data and the diagnosis.