Nonmydriatic retinal photography in the evaluation of acute neurologic conditions.

Ocular fundus examination is a fundamental component of the neurologic examination. Finding papilledema in headache patients or retinal arterial emboli in stroke patients can be extremely useful. Although examination of the ocular fundus with a direct ophthalmoscope is an important skill for all neurologists, it is rarely and unreliably performed. Nonmydriatic ocular fundus photography, which allows direct visualization of high-quality photographs of the ocular fundus, has been recently proposed for screening neurologic patients in urgent care settings such as emergency departments. This new technology has many potential applications in neurology, including e-transmission of images for remote interpretation.