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S J Kittner

Publications and source records attributed to S J Kittner.

60 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

Infarcts with a cardiac source of embolism in the NINCDS Stroke Data Bank: historical features.

To gain insight into the historical features relevant to the diagnosis of cardiac embolic strokes, we studied the 1,290 patients with cerebral infarcts in the NINCDS Stroke Data Bank. Based solely on the presence of cardiac sources of embolism, we divided the patients into groups of high (n = 250), medium (n = 166), and low (n = 874) risk of a cardiogenic mechanism for their stroke. There was a highly significant graded relationship between increasing risk of a cardiac source and a history, or presence of, systemic embolism, abrupt onset, and diminished level of consciousness at onset. These clinical features may be useful for assessing the likelihood of a cardiac embolic mechanism in patients with cerebral infarcts.

Cerebral Infarction↗

Blood pressure and cognitive performance. The Framingham Study.

In 1976-1978, a battery of eight neuropsychologic tests were administered to 2,123 participants in the Framingham Study who were aged 55-89 years. Performance on each test was examined in relation to concurrently measured systolic and diastolic blood pressure while controlling for age, sex, education, antihypertensive medication, alcohol consumption, and smoking. Those with a diagnosis of stroke were excluded from the analysis. In the remaining sample of 2,032, neither blood pressure nor antihypertensive treatment was significantly associated with cognitive performance. Even after excluding persons on antihypertensive medication, blood pressure was still unrelated to cognitive performance. In contrast to other studies, the authors found no consistent relation between blood pressure and cognitive performance.

Aged↗

Methodological issues in screening for dementia: the problem of education adjustment.

The methodological problems of developing efficient and unbiased screening methods for population-based studies of dementia have received scant attention. The potential advantages of education-adjusted screening methods are discussed. The implications for adjustment techniques of a negative correlation of educational attainment with age are emphasized. Two education adjustment methods, a stratified regression method and a nonparametric method, which take the age-education correlation into account are described, compared, and illustrated.

Age Factors↗

Alcohol and coronary heart disease in Puerto Rico.

The relationship of alcohol consumption, measured in 1965-1968 by the 24-hour recall method, to incident coronary heart disease morbidity at eight years and mortality at 12 years of follow-up was investigated in a cohort of 9150 Puerto Rican males 35-79 years of age. After adjustment for age, cigarettes, exercise, urban/rural status, and income, there was clear evidence of a "U-shaped" relationship between alcohol and total mortality, and also the suggestion of a "J-shaped" relationship for angina pectoris, nonfatal myocardial infarction, and nonsudden coronary heart disease death. There was no association of alcohol with sudden cardiac death. The adjusted odds ratio for drinkers versus nondrinkers was 0.6 for angina pectoris (p less than 0.05), 0.7 for nonfatal myocardial infarction (p less than 0.1), and 0.7 for nonsudden coronary heart disease death (p less than 0.05). The inverse association of alcohol consumption to nonsudden coronary heart disease death was found to be dependent on age and income: the adjusted odds ratio for subjects under age 60 (0.4) or over the median income (0.3) strongly favored drinkers, while there was no evidence for a "protective effect" of alcohol consumption in the older and poorer segments of the population. It is concluded that available evidence does not justify the assertion that the inverse association between moderate alcohol intake and coronary heart disease risk is a causal one.

Adult↗