Welcome back, it's Doctor Smith again.

I'm going introduce week number three to you,

in week number three we're going to talk about abnormality

in the level of consciousness of the patient,

a term that we use as altered mental status.

And I'm also going to talk about what

happens when a person actually dies, how do

you define death from a heart stoppage to the brain ceasing all of it's functions.

And in the second lecture this

week, Dr. Maulik Shah, one of our

neurohospitalists here at UCSF and a specialist in

brain infections, is going to talk about encephalitis,

meningitis, and other infections of the nervous system.

Now this is all starting to fit into place.

You remember, in the first few weeks, we talked

about the anatomy of the nervous system and then

I talked about stroke, which gave you a nice

way to take structure and function, put them together.

Dr. Lowenstein, week two,

talked about epilepsy, followed then by

the neurodegenerative status by Dr. Josephson.

This week we'll focus, again now, on changes in level of

consciousness, like when is a person in stupor or coma, for example.

What happens when a person progresses to a state

of death because all of their brain functions have disappeared?

Otherwise known as brain death.

And then we'll talk about some of the disorders

that can actually lead to that, for example, infections of

nerves system. Dr. Shah is, will be giving that talk.

He is a specialist in in infections of the nervous system.

He is also a neurohospitalist here at UCSF

and I am sure you will enjoy both lectures.

Introduction with Wade Smith