Author Archives: dulcetware

About dulcetware

designing educational software applications

Detection of Brain Activation in Vegetative State by Standard Electroencephalography

This paper by Claassen et al., 2019 looks at EEG pattern changes in response to verbally given movement commands to see if there is a subset of vegetative state patients who are cognitively responsive and yet who have no motor … Continue reading

Posted in Intensive Care Neurology | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Double-Blind Double-Dummy Randomised Study of Continuous Intrajejunal infusion of Levodopa-Carbidopa Intestinal Gel in Advanced Parkinson’s Disease

Background Levodopa, a pro-drug of dopamine, has been used successfully to treat symptoms of Parkinson’s disease for fifty years and remains the mainstay of medical management. However after years of treatment, with increasing loss of dopaminergic presynaptic terminals, symptomatic control … Continue reading

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Mechanical Thrombectomy for Ischaemic Stroke

  Introduction Stroke is the most common cause of disability in Western Countries, and its lifetime risk is 1 in 6 for men and 1 in 5 for women. While managing acute stroke patients in hyperacute stroke units overall has … Continue reading

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Thymectomy for Myasthenia Gravis

  Introduction While thymectomy has long been considered an option to treat myasthenia even if there is simply thymic tissue present rather than thymoma or thymic carcinoma, it has been uncertain how much benefit is achieved by undergoing this major … Continue reading

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Safinamide in Parkinson’s Disease

  Background The rather specific dopaminergic deficit in Parkinson’s disease (PD) has meant that dopaminergic replacement medications have proven to be an effective mainstay of treatment of the condition. However, later on in the course of the disease, such treatment … Continue reading

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Anti K+ Channel Antibodies in Neuromyotonia

Background At this Journal Club it was decided to review a historical paper on the pathophysiology underlying autoimmune neuromyotonia. The paper, “Autoantibodies Detected to Expressed K+ Channels Are Implicated in Neuromyotonia”, from Annals of Neurology (1997, 41:238-246), used a novel … Continue reading

Posted in Inflammatory/ Auto-Immune Diseases | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Comparison of New Oral Anticoagulants (NOACs) with Warfarin

Background Ischaemic stroke is typically either thrombotic (clotting within a cerebral vessel) or embolic (passage of clot material from a more proximal vessel to become lodged in a cerebral vessel). A proportion of embolic stroke events will arise from arterial … Continue reading

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Varicella Zoster is the Cause of Giant Cell Arteritis

Background Giant cell arteritis is an inflammatory condition of certain blood vessels that presents in the elderly. Those vessels affected include the: temporal artery resulting in headache and scalp tenderness over the inflamed artery, ciliary artery resulting in ischaemic optic … Continue reading

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Myasthenia Gravis: Subgroup Classification and Therapeutic Strategies

Background Myasthenia gravis (MG) is a neurological condition characterised by a fatiguing weakness of certain muscle groups, particularly those that control eye opening, eye movements, speech and swallowing When severe the proximal muscles of the limbs and respiratory muscles may … Continue reading

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Clinical Features and Pathology of “Parkinson’s Plus” Syndromes

Background It has long been known that there exist variants of Parkinson’s disease (PD), loosely and perhaps inaccurately described as PD plus syndromes, that may carry features of Parkinsonism but which also have other clinical features. Such conditions have distinct … Continue reading

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