Apnea test in diagnosis of brain death: comparison of two methods and analysis of complications.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to A Scarlatti.
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For decades Parkinson's disease has been considered to be limited to disturbed motor functions and its association with a cognitive deterioration is very recent. The frequency of cognitive decline varies according to the authors between 3% and 93% depending on the different criteria of evaluation. Owing to the discrepancy among the previous studies our object has been to determine the existence of cognitive changes of statistical significance, since even nowadays the relation between neuropsychology and physiopathology has been misunderstood. A total of 50 patients between 52 and 85 years old with Parkinson's disease have been neurological and neuropsychologically evaluated and the results correlated with 50 healthy controls. Patients, who presented clinical signs of demence according to the criteria of DSM III or any other neurological or general disease were excluded because of possible side effects on the motor cognitive phase. For the neuropsychological study Signoret's Battery of Cognitive Efficiency test (BEC 96) was used, it evaluates: the attention, orientation, thinking, memory, recognition, serial learning, fluency, naming and constructional functions. It was observed that all the patients with Parkinson's disease performed these tests worse than the controls, except for attention. From the statistical point of view the differences are highly significant (p < 0.001) for serial learning and constructional tests and significant (p < 0.05) for orientation, thinking fluency and naming. In the area of mnesic functions the patients with Parkinson's disease show an alteration that predominates significantly on serial learning, however, it is less important for logical memory. All the alterations correspond to the long term memory.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
In order to correlate the influence of cerebrovascular disorders with the appearance of parkinsonism, 115 patients aged between 32 and 84 years (mean = 65) with transient ischemic attacks were followed up for one year. They were treated with platelet antiaggregant drugs. None of them received neuroleptics, calcium antagonists or other drugs known to induce parkinsonism. During the study, 8 patients (mean = 75 years) developed parkinsonism, bilateral in all but one, who remarkably enough was the only case responding to L-dopa treatment. On comparing recorded with expected incidence, our series showed significantly greater values. Our findings suggest that cerebrovascular disorders are factors contributing to parkinsonism in the elderly.
We describe 10 neuropathologically verified patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease who died in Argentina between 1980 and 1987. Two of the ten cases were Chilean by birth. Another case visited Chile several times. Two cases (one Argentinian and one Chilean) regularly consumed sheep brain. Ages ranged from 42 to 63 years and the male to female ratio was 7:3. Disease duration ranged from 3.5 to 24 months. Prodromal symptoms presented as behavioral changes in 5 patients, lasting from one year to several weeks, and as neurological impairment in the other 5. Patients developed pyramidal, extrapyramidal and cerebellar disturbances, as well as movement disorders and progressive dementia. Visual alterations were found in 5 cases and periodic EEG activity in 7. Unequivocal cortical spongiform changes, together with varying degrees of neuronal depletion and astroglial hyperplasia were constant findings. No white matter involvement was apparent either from CT brain scans or on histopathological study of biopsied and autopsied material. Increasing awareness of this disease as well as possibilities of transmission is necessary in order to provide better information on its true incidence in Argentina.
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