Encephale
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Review Case Reports
[2 rare neuro-ophthalmologic complications of long-term treatment with lithium salts].
We describe two patients with unusual neuro-ophthalmologic complications during long-term therapy with lithium carbonate given for bipolar affective disorder, "benign" intracranial hypertension in one, and downbeat nystagmus, with oscillopsia in the other. A review of the literature is proposed. Though rare, such neuro-ophthalmologic manifestations are worth being recognised since they usually disappear with cessation--when possible--of lithium therapy.
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Case Reports
[Effects of clonidine on opiate withdrawal symptoms. Results - biochemical mechanisms (author's transl)].
Clonidine was administered to nineteen patients in an inpatient setting after abrupt discontinuation of chronic opiate addiction (morphine, héroin, dextromoramide). Clonidine produces a decrease sometimes very rapid in opiate withdrawal signs but does not suppress the whole affects associated with. These data support the hypothesis that clonidine has antiwithdrawal effect by replacing opiate-mediated inhibition with alpha 2 mediated inhibition of brain noradrenergic activity.
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A retrospective study of 557 outpatients who had been treated with imipramine has been undertaken in a neuro-psychiatric unit. The usual dose was 75 mg per day, most often associated with other psychotropic drugs. ⋯ The best results have been obtained with early treatment when patients didn't have any loss of consciousness at the time of their contusion. The other successful indications of imipramine were phobic and hypocondriacal neurotic symptoms and functional headaches which were resistant to the usual treatments, raising the problem of a possible masked depression.
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The authors have studied the histories of some depressed patients during the period between the World Wars who didn't receive any treatment; they classified them by using modern criteria. They found out that the cases of unipolar depression had spent relatively short time at the hospital. There was no evidence for a difference between the periods before and after the introduction of shocks and thymoleptic drugs.
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Case Reports
[Edemas and myocloni concerning a patient with Parkinson's disease treated by amantadine (author's transl)].
The administration of diuretics to a 64 year old patient with Parkinsonian disease treated by amantadine, orphenadrine and Modopart and presenting an oedemia of the legs, induced the apparition of myoclonic jerks similar to those observed in a bismuth intoxication. The myoclonic jerks remained after the diuretics were stopped and only disappeared with the suppression of amantadine. It is supposed that diuretics increased the intoxication by amantadine, probably by means of an increase of the reabsorption of basic drugs. Myoclonius may be caused by the central anticholinergic properties of amantadine.