[Management of the drunken patient]

Acute ethanol intoxication is frequent in emergency departments. The clinical presentation is highly variable and ranges from an inebriety to a coma and sometimes an agitated patient. You have to examine completely the patient and to do complementary exams with a capillary glycemia as the minimal standard. We must keep in mind that an acute ethanol intoxication is a diagnosis of exclusion. With trauma patients, we have to keep a low threshold for asking radiological advanced imaging, like cerebro-cervical CT scan. The patient should be reexamined frequently. The treatment is a supportive one. If the patient is agitated, you can give him haloperidol or a benzodiazepine. Before discharge, the patient should see the alcohologic team.