1,720,971 research outputs found
Ultrasonography of the Optic Nerve Sheath Diameter for Diagnosis and Monitoring of Acute Mountain Sickness: A Systematic Review
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Cutaneous innervation and trigeminal pathway function in a patient with facial pain associated with Parry-Romberg syndrome
No full textParry-Romberg syndrome (PRS) is a rare condition manifesting with progressive hemifacial atrophy. Although reported PRS clinical disturbances include facial pain and recent studies raised the possibility that PRS-related pain is a neuropathic pain condition due to the trigeminal nerve damage, no studies have directly investigated cutaneous innervation and trigeminal pathway function in patients with this rare condition. In a 50-year-old woman presenting with a 10-year history of slowly progressive hemifacial atrophy and facial pain, we investigated large myelinated fibres with masticatory muscle electromyography and trigeminal reflexes, and tested small myelinated and unmyelinated fibres with laser-evoked potentials. We also investigated cutaneous innervation by measuring the intraepidermal nerve fibre (IENF) density after skin biopsy of the supraorbital regions. We found that neurophysiological data and IENF density came within normal ranges, with no differences between normal and affected side. Our study showing that the standard reference techniques for assessing cutaneous innervation and trigeminal pathway function disclosed no abnormalities in this patient with PRS suggest that this rare and disabling condition is not associated with trigeminal system damage. These findings indicate that in this patient PRS-related pain is not a neuropathic pain condition, rather it probably arises from the musculoskeletal abnormalities
Effetti della zonisamide sull’EEG: uno studio quantitativo ed ispettivo in pazienti epilettici.
No full textScales for hyperkinetic disorders: A systematic review
Full text linkHyperkinetic movement disorders represent a heterogeneous group of disorders in which involuntary movements are the prevalent clinical symptoms. The five main categories of hyperkinetic disorders are tremor, dystonia, tics, myoclonus and drug-induced dyskinesia.The severity of hyperkinetic disorders is assessed by all clinicians when they examine a patient; quantifying the severity also provides a means of studying the natural history of a given disorder and the possible effect of new therapeutic interventions. This means that good rating instruments are required in both everyday practice and experimental settings. Unfortunately, the clinical evaluation of these disorders is complicated by the inherent nature and variability over time of involuntary movements. A number of scales have been proposed over the years to study the various hyperkinetic disorders. The aim of this review is to systematically identify all the clinical scales that have been proposed and to classify them according to the criteria developed by the Movement Disorder Society (MDS) task force for rating scales in Parkinson's disease. On the basis of this methodology, a scale may be defined as ‘Recommended’, ‘Suggested’ or ‘Listed’ in decreasing order of value.We found that, although numerous scales aimed at assessing hyperkinetic disorders have been published, their variability in terms of clinimetric properties, availability and effort required to administer them is high. In this evaluation, we identified scales defined as ‘Recommended’ for the assessment of all forms of hyperkinetic disorders. The situation highlighted by our analysis varies considerably, with several ‘Recommended’ scales being available for some conditions such as tics or dystonia, but only one being available for myoclonus. This gap needs to be filled by the scientific community through both the development of new clinical tools and the refinement of existing ones
Isolated high altitude psychosis, delirium at high altitude, and high altitude cerebral edema: are these diagnoses valid?
No full text: Psychosis is a psychopathological syndrome that can be triggered or caused by exposure to high altitude (HA). Psychosis can occur alone as isolated HA psychosis or can be associated with other mental and often also somatic symptoms as a feature of delirium. Psychosis can also occur as a symptom of high altitude cerebral edema (HACE), a life-threatening condition. It is unclear how psychotic symptoms at HA should be classified into existing diagnostic categories of the most widely used classification systems of mental disorders, including the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) and the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-11). We provide a diagnostic framework for classifying symptoms using the existing diagnostic categories: psychotic condition due to a general medical condition, brief psychotic disorder, delirium, and HACE. We also discuss the potential classification of isolated HA psychosis into those categories. A valid and reproducible classification of symptoms is essential for communication among professionals, ensuring that patients receive optimal treatment, planning further trips to HA for individuals who have experienced psychosis at HA, and advancing research in the field
Psychiatric disorders in patients with essential tremor
No full textBACKGROUND: Previous studies have reported that a consistent proportion of patients with Essential Tremor may have psychiatric disorders but it is unclear whether these disorders are increased in frequency as compared to healthy subjects. METHODS: In a case-control study, we adopted the structured interviews for DSM-IV, SCID-I and SCID-II, to investigate psychiatric and personality disorders in 37 ET patients and 34 healthy subjects. As cognitive changes in ET may be a confounding factor we enrolled patients and healthy control subjects without cognitive dysfunction. RESULTS: SCID-I showed that Axis-I psychiatric disorders, mainly depressive disorders, were more frequent in ET patients (20 of 37; 54%) than in healthy subjects (8 of 34; 22%) (p < 0.01). Depressive disorders were more frequent in patients with a family history of ET (p < 0.05) in comparison to patients without a family history. SCID-II disclosed that the frequency of personality disorders was similar in patients with ET and healthy subjects. CONCLUSION: Psychiatric disorders may be associated to the neurological manifestations of ET. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
Spread of muscle spasms in hemifacial spasm
No full textHemifacial spasm (HFS) is a clinical condition characterized by involuntary contractions in facial
muscles. The aim of the study was to investigate, systematically in 178 patients with HFS, the frequency of
spread from the site of origin to other facial muscles. Patients enrolled underwent a complete neurological
examination and a face-to-face interview. Spread of the spasm to other facial muscles was considered to be
present in those patients whose spasms onset in a single site and involved both upper and lower facial
muscles at the time of examination. We also collected information about gender, age, age at HFS onset,
symptom duration, muscles involved by the spasm at the time of onset, and spread of spasm to other facial
muscles. Spread of spasms to the other facial muscles of the same side of the face was present in 93.4% of
patients with HFS, and latency of spread was related to disease duration and age at onset. In patients with
HFS, spread of muscle spasms represents the natural history of HFS
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
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