Shift work. How does it affect you?

BACKGROUND: Records of nocturnal penile tumescence are still important test and necessary to distinguish organic impotence from psycogenic impotence. METHODS: We developed the nocturnal penile tumescence recorder with a disposab indiumgallium straingauge, and we examined its clinical usefulness for volunteers with normal erectile function. RESULTS: The results were that the indium-gallium straingauge had almost the same resistance change with extension, and that it showed almost the same resistance value at respective circumferences with consecutively ten times measurements. Only two of thirty-nine volunteers experienced the snapping of the indium-gallium strain-gauge. None of the volunteers complained of discomfort during measurements. The nocturnal penile tumescence of five volunteers were recorded with a conventional mercuric straingauge and a newly developed indium-gallium straingauge simultaneously, and there were no significant differences between the results of the two materials. This recorder is very simple to manage, and the softwares for preservation of data and making graph are also simple. This new straingauge is clean and dose not require maintenance because of the disposable use. CONCLUSION: We concluded that this recorder system was clinically useful for t examination of nocturnal penile tumescence.

Circadian Rhythm↗

PubMed1994

[The distribution of sleep and wakefulness in human African trypanosomiasis].

Last century, patients with human African trypanosomiasis were described as sleepy by day and restless by night, and physicians referred to this condition as sleeping sickness. Such a description could have evoked a disturbance of circadian rhythms. However, it is only in 1989 that the first 24-hour recording was performed by our team in Niamey (Niger) in a patient with sleeping sickness. The patient was a Niger-born farm worker who had contracted the disease near Gagnoa (Côte d'Ivoire). Polysomnographic recordings (electroencephalogram, EEG, electrooculogram, electromyogram, electrocardiogram, buccal and nasal airflow, and chest respiratory movements) showed a disappearance of the circadian distribution of sleep and wakefulness, which tended to occur evenly throughout day and night, with a sleep-wake alternation of approximately 80 minutes. Two investigations were conducted thereafter. The first one was done at Daloa (Côte d'Ivoire) in 8 patients who were recorded during two 24-hour periods, with and without hourly blood samples; the second at Brazzaville (Congo) in 10 patients recorded for 24 hours before and after treatment with melarsoprol. All patients were at the stage of early meningoencephalitis. At Daloa, polysomnographic recordings were taken on two 8-channel EEG machines (Alvar Minihuit, and T3-ECEM), as well as on a portable Oxford Medilog 9000 system from the same electrodes. Sleep and wake structure was altered in the most severely sick patient, the EEG trace being loaded with slow waves. Stages 1 and 2, and stages 3 and 4 could not be distinguished from one another. In the other patients, all sleep stages were easily scored. No difference was seen between recordings, regarding blood collection.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Circadian Rhythm↗