Age and ageing
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Prevalence and prediction of unrecognised diabetes mellitus and impaired glucose tolerance following acute stroke.
diabetes mellitus not only increases the risk of ischaemic stroke two- to four-fold but also adversely inXuences prognosis. The prevalence of recognised diabetes mellitus in acute stroke patients is between 8 and 20%, but between 6 and 42% of patients may have undiagnosed diabetes mellitus before presentation. Post-stroke hyperglycaemia is frequent and of limited diagnostic value and the oral glucose tolerance test assumes that the patient is clinically stable and eating normally. There is a need for a simple and reliable method to predict new diabetes mellitus in acute stroke patients. ⋯ one-third of all acute stroke patients may have diabetes mellitus. For patients presenting with post-stroke hyperglycaemia, impaired glucose tolerance or diabetes mellitus is present in two-thirds of survivors at 12 weeks. Admission plasma glucose > or = 6.1 mmol/l combined with glycosylated haemoglobin > or = 6.2% are good predictors of the presence of diabetes mellitus following stroke.
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Case Reports
Non-convulsive status epilepticus in elderly individuals: report of four representative cases.
the purpose of this article is to describe the clinical and electroencephalographic features of four elderly patients diagnosed as having non-convulsive status epilepticus. ⋯ the identification of non-convulsive status epilepticus may be particularly arduous in elderly subjects and, therefore, a high level of suspicion is essential to obtain an early diagnosis. An urgent electroencephalogram is considered as the method of choice in the diagnostic evaluation of non-convulsive status epilepticus. Finally, non-convulsive status epilepticus should be included among the causes of coma in older individuals.