Treatment of Hypertensive Crisis

Abstract

OF the estimated 60 million Americans with hypertension, less than 1 percent will ever have a hypertensive crisis.¹ The infrequency of such events can be attributed to improvements in the management of hypertension over the past 10 years. When patients do arrive at the emergency department or the physician's office with a critical elevation in blood pressure, proper management is essential to avoid catastrophic injury to the central nervous system, the heart, and the kidneys as a result of a delay in initiating effective therapy or of overzealous therapy leading to a too-rapid reduction in blood pressure.Hypertensive crisis is . . .