BMJ Best Practice Podcast

Tremor is an involuntary oscillatory and rhythmic movement of a body part. It commonly affects the upper extremities but can also affect the head, chin, voice, or legs. Tremor may impair activities of daily living or occupation, and may lead to embarrassment and social withdrawal. To find out how to diagnose and manage patients, please do listen to this podcast with Camilla Kilbane, who is an Associate Professor of Neurology, Case Western Reserve University. COI: CK has served as a consultant for Medtronic, including participation on the Data Safety Monitoring Board for the ADAPT-PD trial. CK has participated in the speakers bureau for Teva Pharmaceuticals and has served as an expert witness in one legal case.

Pertussis or whooping cough is an acute infectious disease caused by Bordetella pertussis. It is highly contagious, highly serious, and highly preventable. To find out more about this condition, please do listen to this BMJ Best Practice podcast interview with Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group and Ashall Professor of Infection and Immunity in Oxford. Competing interests: AP has been chair of JCVI for the past 12 years. For more on pertussis, visit BMJ Best Practice.

Measles is a serious disease. Unfortunately, it is making a comeback. So we need to know how to diagnose, manage and prevent it. To find out more about how to do all of this, listen to this BMJ Best Practice podcast interview with Linda Nield, Professor of Medical Education and Pediatrics at West Virginia University School of Medicine. For more on measles, visit BMJ Best Practice. Competing interests: None

It is difficult to say how common factitious disorders are. A review of psychiatric consultations in a tertiary care setting found about 1% of referrals received a diagnosis of factitious disorder. Using an entirely different approach, researchers examined specimens submitted by patients as kidney stones and found that 3.5% were obviously non-physiological. But whatever the prevalence, the consequences can be serious. They include unnecessary diagnostic procedures or interventions and sometimes self-injury. To find out more about this condition, please do listen to this BMJ Best Practice podcast interview with James Levenson, Professor of Psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth University. And importantly James is author of our BMJ Best Practice topic on factitious disorders. Competing interests: None For more on factitious disorders, visit BMJ Best Practice.

In 2016, the estimated number of people globally with active epilepsy was 45.9 million. For the US in 2015, this figure was around 3.4 million. So epilepsy is common and generalised seizures are a common type of epilepsy. And the consequences can be serious - from medication side effects to status to sudden unexpected death. To find out more about this problem and what we can do about it, listen to this BMJ Best Practice podcast interview with Daniel Winkel, Assistant Professor of Neurology at Emory University School of Medicine. For more on generalised seizures, visit BMJ Best Practice. Competing interests: DW receives consulting fees from NextSense, Inc.

Hypercholesterolemia is common condition with serious consequences. It is important that we assess, diagnose and manage it appropriately. To find out more about this problem and what we can do about it, please do listen to this BMJ Best Practice podcast interview with Thorsten Leucker, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. For more on hypercholesterolemia, visit BMJ Best Practice. Competing interests: TL has received grant funding for his university from Amgen and Merck.

Hyperkalemia is common and can be serious. It can result in life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias. So it is important that we assess this problem properly, find an underlying diagnosis if there is one, and manage appropriately. To find out more about this problem and what we can do about it, please do listen to this BMJ Best Practice podcast interview with Sri Yarlagadda, Associate Professor at The University of Kansas Medical Center. Competing interests: None declared For more on hyperkalemia, visit BMJ Best Practice.