Search results for "characteristics"
showing 10 items of 909 documents
Causes and place of death in Italian patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
2010
Objectives - To determine the causes and place of death in a cohort of Italian patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). A better understanding of the likely causes of death in ALS might improve the palliative care at the end-of-life, whereas knowing the place of death will help to verify the need for highly specialized care services, e.g. hospice and nursing home. Patients and methods - Between 2000 and 2008, 182 ALS patients (onset: spinal, 127; bulbar, 55; M/F: 1.6) were followed in a single ALS Tertiary Centre in Palermo, Sicily, Italy until death. Medical data for each individual patient were recorded in a large database throughout the disease course. Information concerning ca…
The symptom of low mood in the prodromal stage of mild cognitive impairment and dementia: a cohort study of a community dwelling elderly population.
2011
Objective: To investigate the symptom of low mood as a predictor of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and its progression to dementia, taking into account: i) MCI severity, ii) time of assessment, iii) interaction with other factors. Methods: 764 cognitively healthy elderly living in the community, from the Kungsholmen Project. Participants were assessed by direct interview to detect low mood. Subjects were then followed for six years to identify those who developed MCI. People with incident MCI were followed for a further three years to assess progression to dementia. Results: People with low mood at baseline had a 2.7-fold (95% Confidence Interval [CI] 1.9-3.7) increased risk of developing …
Incidence, risk factors, clinical characteristics and outcomes of deep venous thrombosis in patients with COVID-19 attending the Emergency Department…
2021
Background and importance A higher incidence of venous thromboembolism [both pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis (DVT)] in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been described. But little is known about the true frequency of DVT in patients who attend emergency department (ED) and are diagnosed with COVID-19. Objective We investigated the incidence, risk factors, clinical characteristics and outcomes of DVT in patients with COVID-19 attending the ED before hospitalization. Methods We retrospectively reviewed all COVID patients diagnosed with DVT in 62 Spanish EDs (20% of Spanish EDs, case group) during the first 2 months of the COVID-19 outbreak. We compared DVT-COVI…
Surface electromyographic evaluation of jaw muscles in children with unilateral crossbite and lateral shift in the early mixed dentition. Sexual dimo…
2011
Objectives: To examine the activity of jaw muscles at rest and during maximal voluntary clenching (MVC) in children with unilateral posterior crossbite (UPXB) and functional lateral shift in the early mixed dentition and to evaluate sex differences. Material and Methods: The sample included 30 children (15 males, 15 females) aged 6 to 10 years old, with UPXB and functional mandibular lateral shift (≥1.5 mm) in the early mixed dentition. sEMG activity coming from the muscle areas (anterior temporalis [AT], posterior temporalis [PT], masseter [MA] and suprahyoid [SH]) were obtained from both the crossbite (XB) and noncrossbite (NONXB) sides at mandibular rest position. sEMG acti-vity of the b…
Distinctiveness and overlap of depersonalization with anxiety and depression in a community sample: results from the Gutenberg Heart Study.
2010
Depersonalization disorder is considered to be a common clinical phenomenon and disorder with an enormous gap between prevalence and detection partly due to the common interpretation of depersonalization (DP) being a negligible variant of anxiety and depression. Therefore, we sought to analyze (1) the prevalence rate of DP in a large community sample (n=5000) according to a recently developed ultra brief two-item depersonalization screener; (2) the associations with depression, anxiety, physical and mental health status; and 93) whether DP contributes independently to the health status beyond anxiety and depression. The prevalence of clinically significant DP was 0.8% (n=41), and 8.5% (n=42…
Relationship between mobility and cognitive impairment in patients with Alzheimer's disease.
2019
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is usually accompanied by impairments to mobility, performance of the basic activities of daily life (ADL), and progressive cognitive decline. We analyzed the relationship between cognitive performance and related cognitive subdomains and mobility.All AD patients of the recruited individuals were living in nursing homes; they underwent a blood analysis, cognitive examination by using the Mini-Mental State Examination, functional evaluation of independence in the ADLs with Barthel score and Katz index, and mobility assessment with the elderly mobility scale.The mean sample age was 84 years and majority were women; more than 60% of the participants had severe cognitiv…
Sex differences in behavioral traits related with high sensitivity to the reinforcing effects of cocaine
2021
Cocaine is the most prevalent illegal stimulant drug in Europe among the adult population. Its abuse is characterized by a faster substance abuse disorder (SUD) development than other drugs, with high vulnerability to relapse. However, there does not exist an effective treatment for cocaine dependence. Sex differences have been reported in psychological disorders including SUD. For this reason, it is essential to identify risk factors that predict susceptibility or resilience to cocaine addiction for the development of effective prevention strategies considering sex differences. In the present study, the main objective was to determine more sensitive phenotypes to the conditioned reinforcin…
Modification of the rat aortic wall during ageing; possible relation with decrease of peptidergic innervation.
2002
Structural changes of the male rat aorta were followed from birth to old age in male and female rats. In males, the vessel media width and area progressively increase concomitantly with a decrease of nuclei density during ageing, suggesting an hypertrophy of the smooth muscle cells. These correlations were however not evidenced in females. TUNEL-positive cells were found in media of 4 and 6 months in both sexes, mainly on the luminal side and in the adventitia. When biochemical markers were investigated with immunohistochemistry, media was uniformly stained by the anti-vimentin and anti-alpha-smooth actin at all stages investigated. On the contrary, the surface of media stained with anti-de…
Forest fragmentation is associated with primary brood sex ratio in the treecreeper (Certhia familiaris).
2003
We studied the primary brood sex ratio of an old-growth forest passerine, the Eurasian treecreeper (Certhia familiaris), along a gradient of forest fragmentation. We found evidence that male nestlings were more costly to produce, since they suffered twofold higher nestling mortality and were larger in body size than females. Furthermore, the proportion of males in the brood was positively associated with the provisioning rate and the amount of food delivered to the nestlings. During the first broods, a high edge density and a high proportion of pine forests around the nests were related to a decreased production of males. The densities of spiders, the main food of the treecreeper, were 38% …
Risk of classic Kaposi sarcoma with residential exposure to volcanic and related soils in Sicily
2009
Purpose Before AIDS, endemic (African) Kaposi sarcoma (KS) was noted to occur in volcanic areas and was postulated to result from dirt chronically embedded in the skin of the lower extremities. The primary cause of all KS types is KS-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) infection, but cofactors contribute to the neoplasia. We investigated whether residential exposure to volcanic or related soils was associated with the risk of classic Kaposi sarcoma (cKS) in Sicily. Methods Risk of incident cKS ( N = 141) compared with population-based KSHV seropositive controls ( N = 123) was estimated for residential exposure to four types of soil, categorized with maps from the European Soil Database and dire…