84 research outputs found
Health-related quality of life and its determinants in Parkinson's disease: results of an Italian cohort study.
No full textA smart tool for the diagnosis of Parkinsonian syndrome using wireless watches
No full textThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.Early detection and diagnosis of Parkinson disease will provide a good chance for patients to take early actions and prevent its further development. In this paper, a smart tool for the diagnosis of Parkinsonian syndromes is designed and developed using low-cost Texas Instruments eZ430-Chronos wireless watches. With this smart tool, Parkinson Bradykinesia is detected based on the cycle of a human gait, with the watch worn on the foot, and Parkinson Tremor shaking is detected and differed by frequency 0 to 8 Hz on the arm in real-time with a developed statistical diagnosis chart. It can be used in small clinics as well as home environment due to its low-cost and easy-use property
Localizing the Sources of Task Difficulty dependent P3m Modulation
No full textThe aim of this project was to determine the sources of the task difficulty dependent P3m modulation using an LCMV beamformer. For this, we developed a paradigm for a visual task with different difficulties but with constant physical properties of the stimuli (Gabor patches
Lipopeptides as dimerization inhibitors of HIV-1 protease
No full textIn AIDS therapy, attempts have been made to inhibit the virus-encoded enzymes, e.g, HIV-1 protease, using active site-directed inhibitors. This approach is questionable, however, due to virus mutations and the high toxicity of the drugs, An alternative method to inhibit the dimeric HIV protease is the targeting of the interface region of the protease subunits in order to prevent subunit dimerization and enzyme activity, This approach should be less prone to inactivation by mutation, A list of improved 'dimerization inhibitors' of HIV-1 protease is presented. The main structural features are a short `interface' peptide segment, including non-natural amino acids, and an aliphatic N-terminal blocking group. The high inhibitory power of some of the lipopeptides {[}e.g, palmitoyl-Tyr-Glu-Leu-OH, palmitoyl-Tyr-Glu-(L-thyronine)-OH, palmitoyl-Tyr-Glu-(L-biphenyl-alanine)-OH] with low nanomolar K-i values in the enzyme test suggests that mimetics with good bio-availability can be derived for AIDS therapy
Early Globus Pallidus Internus Stimulation in Pediatric Patients With Generalized Primary Dystonia: Long-Term Efficacy and Safety
No full textPrimary generalized dystonia presents mainly at a young age and commonly is severely disabling. The authors report the long-term follow-up (mean, 73 months; range, 50-101 months) of 5 pediatric patients (mean age at surgery 13 years; range, 8-16 years) undergoing globus pallidus internus deep brain stimulation. Mean improvement in the Burke-Fahn-Marsden movement score was 67.4% (range, 47.0%-87.5%), 75.4% (range, 61.5%-91.7%), and 83.5% (range, 72.0%-93.3%) at 3 months, 12 months, and long-term follow-up (>36 months), respectively. Hardware problems (electrode dislocation/breakage of extension cable, and imminent perforation of extension cable) were observed in 2 patients (operative revision without sequelae). Except for mild dysarthria in 2 patients, no other therapy-related morbidity was observed. The authors found globus pallidus internus stimulation to offer a very effective and safe therapy in pediatric patients with primary dystonia. Early neurosurgical intervention seems to be crucial to prevent irreversible impairment of motor function
Posterior fossa tremor induced by HIV-associated progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy
No full textQuantitative comparison of catalytic mechanisms and overall reactions in convergently evolved enzymes : implications for classification of enzyme function
No full textThe authors thank the National Institutes of Health (NIH R01 GM60595 to PCB) and the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance (SULSA to JBOM) for funding.Functionally analogous enzymes are those that catalyze similar reactions on similar substrates but do not share common ancestry, providing a window on the different structural strategies nature has used to evolve required catalysts. Identification and use of this information to improve reaction classification and computational annotation of enzymes newly discovered in the genome projects would benefit from systematic determination of reaction similarities. Here, we quantified similarity in bond changes for overall reactions and catalytic mechanisms for 95 pairs of functionally analogous enzymes (non-homologous enzymes with identical first three numbers of their EC codes) from the MACiE database. Similarity of overall reactions was computed by comparing the sets of bond changes in the transformations from substrates to products. For similarity of mechanisms, sets of bond changes occurring in each mechanistic step were compared; these similarities were then used to guide global and local alignments of mechanistic steps. Using this metric, only 44% of pairs of functionally analogous enzymes in the dataset had significantly similar overall reactions. For these enzymes, convergence to the same mechanism occurred in 33% of cases, with most pairs having at least one identical mechanistic step. Using our metric, overall reaction similarity serves as an upper bound for mechanistic similarity in functional analogs. For example, the four carbon-oxygen lyases acting on phosphates (EC 4.2.3) show neither significant overall reaction similarity nor significant mechanistic similarity. By contrast, the three carboxylic-ester hydrolases (EC 3.1.1) catalyze overall reactions with identical bond changes and have converged to almost identical mechanisms. The large proportion of enzyme pairs that do not show significant overall reaction similarity (56%) suggests that at least for the functionally analogous enzymes studied here, more stringent criteria could be used to refine definitions of EC sub-subclasses for improved discrimination in their classification of enzyme reactions. The results also indicate that mechanistic convergence of reaction steps is widespread, suggesting that quantitative measurement of mechanistic similarity can inform approaches for functional annotation.Peer reviewe
Costs of Parkinson's Disease and Antiparkinsonian Pharmacotherapy: An Italian Cohort Study
No full textObjective: Antiparkinsonian pharmacotherapy is costly and the determinants of drug costs in Parkinson's disease (PD) have been poorly investigated. The objective of this study was to investigate the costs of PD and antiparkinsonian drugs in an Italian cohort of patients and identify cost-driving factors of drug therapy. Methods: Seventy outpatients with idiopathic PD were recruited in the Department of Neurology, Napoli University, Italy. Data on resource utilization were collected for 6 months using a bottom-up approach. Clinical status was evaluated using the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale. Direct and indirect costs were calculated from the societal perspective (figures of year 2009). Independent determinants of total costs and costs of antiparkinsonian drugs were identified using multivariate regression analysis. Results: The total costs of PD were EUR 8,640 (95% CI: EUR 6,700-11,240) per patient over a 6-month period. Direct costs accounted for 70% of the total costs. Antiparkinsonian drugs (EUR 1,450; 95% CI: EUR 1,220-1,760) were the primary component of costs paid by the health insurance (39.6%) and one of the most expensive components of the direct costs (24.0%). The highest copayments made by patients were for antiparkinsonian drugs and medical equipment (58%). Independent determinants of the increased costs of antiparkinsonian pharmacotherapy were younger age and occurrence of motor fluctuations. Conclusions: Antiparkinsonian pharmacotherapy is one of the major cost components of PD-related costs for health insurance. It imposes a considerable economic burden on patients and their families as well. Copyright (C) 2010 S. Karger AG, Base
GWTC-1: A Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog of Compact Binary Mergers Observed by LIGO and Virgo during the First and Second Observing Runs
No full textInternational audienceWe present the results from three gravitational-wave searches for coalescing compact binaries with component masses above 1 M⊙ during the first and second observing runs of the advanced gravitational-wave detector network. During the first observing run (O1), from September 12, 2015 to January 19, 2016, gravitational waves from three binary black hole mergers were detected. The second observing run (O2), which ran from November 30, 2016 to August 25, 2017, saw the first detection of gravitational waves from a binary neutron star inspiral, in addition to the observation of gravitational waves from a total of seven binary black hole mergers, four of which we report here for the first time: GW170729, GW170809, GW170818, and GW170823. For all significant gravitational-wave events, we provide estimates of the source properties. The detected binary black holes have total masses between 18.6-0.7+3.2 M⊙ and 84.4-11.1+15.8 M⊙ and range in distance between 320-110+120 and 2840-1360+1400 Mpc. No neutron star–black hole mergers were detected. In addition to highly significant gravitational-wave events, we also provide a list of marginal event candidates with an estimated false-alarm rate less than 1 per 30 days. From these results over the first two observing runs, which include approximately one gravitational-wave detection per 15 days of data searched, we infer merger rates at the 90% confidence intervals of 110−3840 Gpc-3 y-1 for binary neutron stars and 9.7−101 Gpc-3 y-1 for binary black holes assuming fixed population distributions and determine a neutron star–black hole merger rate 90% upper limit of 610 Gpc-3 y-1
Cognitive impairment in patients with Parkinson's disease
No full textIntroduction: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a chronic progressive neurodegenerative disorder. The presence of cognitive impairment is one of the non-motor symptoms that a patient with Parkinson's disease may present; it is very important because it affects, in particular, executive, attentional, visuospatial and memory domains.Objective: to determine the relationship between the presence of cognitive impairment and the clinical characteristics of patients with Parkinson's disease belonging to the Municipality of Cifuentes.Methods: a descriptive, cross-sectional, observational study was carried out in the health areas of Cifuentes from October 2013 to October 2019. The study population consisted of 34 patients, the population coincides with the study sample.Results: 76.47% of the study patients presented cognitive impairment compared to 64.70% of the patients who were found to be cognitively impaired (according to the clock drawing test). A trend is observed, both with the Movement Disorder Society-Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale and with the Hoehn and Yarh scale, that the greater the degree of severity, the greater the prevalence of cognitive impairment.Conclusions: patients between 61 and 70 years of age and male sex have a higher risk of developing Parkinson's disease. According to the clock drawing test and the mini-mental state examination, patients with Parkinson's disease with cognitive impairment predominated. There was a tendency that the higher the degree of severity, the higher the prevalence of cognitive impairment.Introducción: la enfermedad de Parkinson es un trastorno neurodegenerativo crónico progresivo. La presencia de deterioro cognitivo se encuentra dentro de los síntomas no motores que puede presentar el paciente con enfermedad de Parkinson; es este muy importante porque esta repercute, en particular, en dominios como el ejecutivo, el atencional, el visoespacial y la memoria.Objetivo: determinar la relación entre la presencia de deterioro cognitivo y las características clínicas de los pacientes con enfermedad de Parkinson pertenecientes al Municipio de Cifuentes.Métodos: se realizó un estudio observacional de tipo descriptivo, transversal en las áreas de salud de Cifuentes en el período comprendido de octubre de 2013 a octubre de 2019. La población de estudio estuvo constituida por 34 pacientes, la población coincide con la muestra de estudio.Resultados: el 76,47% de los pacientes del estudio presentó deterioro cognitivo en comparación con el 64,70% de los pacientes a los que se les halló este deterioro (según la prueba del dibujo del reloj). Se observa una tendencia, tanto con el Movement Disorder Society-Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale como con la escala Hoehn y Yarh de que, a mayor grado de severidad, mayor prevalencia de deterioro cognitivo.Conclusiones: los pacientes entre 61 y 70 años de edad y sexo masculino poseen mayor riesgo de desarrollar enfermedad de Parkinson. Según la prueba del dibujo del reloj y el mini-examen del estado mental predominaron los pacientes con enfermedad de Parkinson que presentaron deterioro cognitivo. Hubo la tendencia que, a mayor grado de severidad, mayor prevalencia de deterioro cognitivo
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