1,721,131 research outputs found
Use of antipsychotics in elderly patients with dementia: do atypical and conventional agents have a similar safety profile?
No full textPharmacological treatment of dementia addresses two main clinical features of the disease: cognitive deterioration with predominantly memory loss and behavioural and psychological symptoms (BPSD). While cholinesterase inhibitors are recommended in an attempt to delay memory loss and disability, what should be considered the most appropriate pharmacological treatment for BPSD has remained questionable. Antipsychotic medications, conventional and atypical agents, have been increasingly utilized in clinical practice but only a small number of clinical studies have investigated their relative cost-benefit ratio. This review focuses on the safety of atypical and conventional antipsychotics when used in patients with BPSD. Overall, atypical and conventional antipsychotics are associated with a similarly increased risk for all-cause mortality and cerebrovascular events. Relative to atypical agents users, patients being treated with conventional antipsychotics have an increased incidence of cardiac arrhythmias and extrapyramidal symptoms. Conversely, users of atypical antipsychotics are exposed to an increased risk of venous thromboembolism and aspiration pneumonia. Also, metabolic effects (i.e. increased risk of diabetes, weight gain) have consistently been documented in clinical studies with atypical antipsychotics, although this effect tends to be attenuated with advancing age and in elderly patients with dementia. Antipsychotics, both conventional and atypical, should be used with caution only when nonpharmacologic approaches have failed to adequately control BPSD. More effective interventions are necessary to improve postmarket drug safety in vulnerable populations
Risk of ischemic stroke associated with antidepressant drug use in elderly persons
No full textCompeting hypotheses have been formulated about a possible association between selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and ischemic stroke. However, the relationship between antidepressant drug use and ischemic stroke is still unclear. The aim of the study was to assess the association between the use of different types of antidepressants and the risk of ischemic stroke in elderly outpatients. A population-based, nested, case-control study was conducted in persons 65 years and older in the Integrated Primary Care Information database (1996-2005). Cases were all patients with a validated first ischemic stroke. Controls were matched on year of birth, sex, and index date. Exposure to antidepressants was divided in current, past, and nonuse and further categorized by type (SSRI, tricyclic, and other antidepressants), dose, and duration. Conditional logistic regression was used to compare the risk of ischemic stroke between users of antidepressants and nonusers. Overall, 996 incident ischemic strokes were identified. Current use of SSRIs was associated with a significantly increased risk as compared with nonuse (odds ratio, 1.55; 95% confidence interval, 1.07-2.25) in elderly patients, particularly when used for less than six months. No associations were observed for current use of tricyclic and other antidepressant drugs. To summarize, compared with nonuse, only SSRI use seems to be associated with an increased risk of ischemic stroke in elderly patients, particularly as a short-term effect
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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