PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Manish Prasad AU - Min Tsui Ong AU - Gururaj Setty AU - William P Whitehouse TI - Fifteen-minute consultation: The child with acute ataxia AID - 10.1136/archdischild-2013-304653 DP - 2013 Dec 01 TA - Archives of disease in childhood - Education & practice edition PG - 217--223 VI - 98 IP - 6 4099 - http://ep.bmj.com/content/98/6/217.short 4100 - http://ep.bmj.com/content/98/6/217.full SO - Arch Dis Child Educ Pract Ed2013 Dec 01; 98 AB - Acute ataxia is a relatively common presentation to the paediatric acute services or child neurologist. Although the cause of ataxia is most often benign, it is important during initial assessment to recognise or exclude serious causes including brain tumour and central nervous system infections. It is equally important to recognise the non-neurological causes of unsteady gait and to avoid unnecessary investigations. In this review, we have presented a diagnostic approach to a child presenting with acute ataxia and described various causes, their treatments and outcomes.