Neurología : publicación oficial de la Sociedad Española de Neurología
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Parkinson disease is a neurodegenerative condition involving motor, cognitive, and linguistic deficits. It is important to know why all these different deficits co-occur in the affected people. This paper aims to clarify whether these comorbid deficits result from the selective impairment of a computational primitive, namely, a context-sensitive computational ability according to Chomsky's Hierarchy (a well-established research tool in comparative neuroscience). ⋯ The observed deficits in our patients with Parkinson disease cannot be explained in terms of the selective impairment of one only unspecific, low-level computational process. At the same time, differences between patients and controls are expected to be greater if the former are not medicated. Moreover, we should pursue in the search of (this kind of) computational primitives than can be selectively impaired in people with Parkinson disease, because they may help to achieve an earlier diagnosis of this condition.
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Envenomation by black widow spiders manifests clinically with signs of neurotoxicity in paediatric patients. ⋯ The neurological signs and symptoms caused by black widow spider bite are predominantly autonomic, and identifying them permits early diagnosis and more effective treatment.
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Observational Study
Ability of procalcitonin to predict bacterial meningitis in the emergency department.
The aim of this study was to analyse and compare procalcitonin (PCT) and C-reactive protein (CRP) as tools for detecting bacterial meningitis and predicting bacteraemia. ⋯ PCT has a high diagnostic power for acute meningitis in emergency department patients. PCT outperforms CRP in the detection of bacterial aetiology and is a good predictor of bacteraemia in bacterial meningitis.
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Detecting in-hospital stroke: Assessment of results from a training programme for medical personnel.
In-hospital stroke (IHS) is a frequent event, but its care priority level is not well established in many hospitals. IHS care at our centre has been redefined by implementing a training programme for medical personnel not usually involved in stroke management, in order to optimise IHS detection and treatment. This study evaluates results from the training programme. ⋯ More IHS code activations were recorded after the training programme. However, that increase was not accompanied by a higher percentage of treated patients or improvements in patient prognosis during the study period, and these findings could probably be explained by the high rates of pre-existing disability and comorbidity in this series.