[Consciousness disturbances during poisonings: pathophysiology, clinical picture, and basic principles of diagnosis and management].

Consciousness is the physiological state of the central nervous system, during which an individual maintain arousal (level of consciousness, vigilance) and realize the internal thoughts as well as the external stimuli (awareness, consciousness content). The toxicity of multiple xenobiotics may lead to impairment of both consciousness categories, presenting clinically as consciousness disturbances, quantitative and qualitative, respectively. Based on the behavioral criteria, different consciousness disorders are diagnosed, among others: brain death, coma, vegetative state, minimally conscious state, akinetic mutism. In the present paper, pathophysiology, clinical picture, as well as basic diagnostic and therapeutic principles of conscious disturbances are described, especially in poisoned patients.