1,720,957 research outputs found
Duloxetine for the Treatment of Overactive Bladder Syndrome in Multiple Sclerosis: A Pilot Study
No full textOBJECTIVES: Overactive bladder (OAB) syndrome represents one of the main urinary disorders associated with multiple sclerosis (MS). At present, no widely accepted effective treatment is available. Duloxetine, an antidepressant acting as a selective serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, has been shown to be effective in the treatment of some symptoms of stress urinary incontinence and OAB because of etiology other than MS.The present study aims at establishing the efficacy and tolerability of duloxetine in the treatment of OAB in patients affected by remitting-relapsing MS and secondary progressive MS. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-three patients with MS, 13 of which with remitting-relapsing MS and 10 with secondary progressive MS, have been treated with duloxetine and placebo for a total period of 8 weeks during a single-blinded cross-over trial. At each programmed visit, patients have been screened for the following: (1) quantitative evaluation of maximal bladder capacity and postmicturition residual volume; (2) questionnaire administration to evaluate bladder disorder-Overactive Bladder Questionnaire, quality of life-Visual Analogue Scale-Quality of life, fatigue-Fatigue Severity Scale, and depression-Beck Depression Inventory. RESULTS: Three patients did not complete the study because of duloxetine-related adverse events. A statistically significant improvement in bladder disorder, as measured by OAB-Q, has been observed after duloxetine treatment compared with both basal levels and placebo with values of 21.8 ± 1.1 versus 34.2 ± 1.2 (P < 0.0001) and 21.8 ± 1.1 versus 30.1 ± 1.7 (P < 0.003), respectively.In addition, a decrease in postmicturition residual volume has also been observed compared with basal level (6.8 ± 3.2 ml vs 38.1 ± 12.2 ml, P = 0.06) together with an improvement in quality of life (7.1 ± 0.5 vs 6.3 ± 0.4, P = 0.07). Both these changes were close to being statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: It emerges from this study that duloxetine might become an effective therapeutic alternative to be investigated in a larger number of MS patients for the treatment of OAB. Duloxetine should be considered a first-choice drug in the treatment of MS patients presenting both depression and OAB; in addition, it should also be considered as a suitable alternative or as concomitant treatment in MS patients with OAB but not experiencing depression Copyright © 2012 by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Hedonistic homeostatic dysregulation in Parkinson's disease: a short screening questionnaire
No full text[No abstract available
the prevalence of ms in central italy
No full textBACKGROUND: The prevalence of multiple sclerosis varies considerably throughout the world. OBJECTIVE: To better define the prevalence of MS in central Italy. METHODS: This is a population-based study conducted in the province of Frosinone, which is situated in the Lazio region, central Italy. The selected prevalence day was 1 January 2007. A total of 467 patients, with a definite diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, were considered for crude, age- and sex-specific prevalence estimation. RESULTS: The overall crude prevalence rate was 95.0 cases per 100,000 (95% confidence interval (CI) 86.6-104.0). A significantly higher prevalence rate was recorded in females (134.9, 95% CI 121.0-150.1) than in males (53.3, 95% CI 44.4-63.3) (p = 0.001). Age-specific prevalence peaked in the 25-34 year, 35-44 year and 45-54 year age groups; moreover, it was found to increase up to the 35-44 year age group in males and the 45-54 year age group in females, decreasing thereafter. The female to male ratio was 2.6. CONCLUSIONS: The results confirm that MS occurs more frequently in central Italy than might be expected on the basis of the geographic-related distribution model, thus supporting the view that this is a high-risk area for the disease. PMID: 20834041 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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