Bmc Med
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Since 2015, Europe has been facing an unprecedented arrival of refugees and migrants: more than one million people entered via land and sea routes. During their travels, refugees and migrants often face harsh conditions, forced detention, and violence in transit countries. However, there is a lack of epidemiological quantitative evidence on their experiences and the mental health problems they face during their displacement. We aimed to document the types of violence experienced by migrants and refugees during their journey and while settled in Greece, and to measure the prevalence of anxiety disorders and access to legal information and procedures. ⋯ This survey, conducted during a mass refugee crisis in a European Community country, provides important data on experiences in different refugee settings and reports the high levels of violence experienced by Syrian refugees during their journeys, the high prevalence of anxiety disorders, and the shortcomings of the international protective response.
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Hyperlactataemia (HL) is a biomarker of disease severity that predicts mortality in patients with sepsis and malaria. Lactate clearance (LC) during resuscitation has been shown to be a prognostic factor of survival in critically ill adults, but little data exist for African children living in malaria-endemic areas. ⋯ Independently of the underlying diagnosis, HL is a strong risk factor for death at 72 h in children admitted with severe febrile illnesses in Africa. Children able to clear lactate within 8 h had an improved chance of survival. These findings prompt the more widespread use of lactate and LC to identify children with severe disease and monitor response to treatment.
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Antidepressants are one of the most commonly prescribed medications in young and middle-aged adults, but there is relatively little information on their safety across a range of adverse outcomes in this age group. This study aimed to assess associations between antidepressant treatment and several adverse outcomes in people aged 20-64 years diagnosed with depression. ⋯ Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors had higher rates of fracture than tricyclic and related antidepressants but lower mortality and adverse drug reaction rates than the other antidepressant drug classes. The association between mirtazapine and increased mortality merits further investigation. These risks should be carefully considered and balanced against potential benefits for individual patients when the decision to prescribe an antidepressant is made.
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Acute symptomatic seizures and febrile seizures are common in children admitted to hospitals in Africa and may be markers of brain dysfunction. They may be associated with behavioural and emotional problems, but there are no published community-based studies in Africa. ⋯ Acute seizures are common in preschool children in this area and are associated with behavioural and emotional problems. Both conditions should be assessed and addressed in children.
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Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD), which share many clinical, neurochemical, and morphological features, have been incorporated into DSM-5 as two separate entities of major neurocognitive disorders with Lewy bodies. Despite clinical overlap, their diagnosis is based on an arbitrary distinction concerning the time of onset of motor and cognitive symptoms, namely as early cognitive impairment in DLB and later onset following that of motor symptoms in PDD. Their morphological hallmarks - cortical and subcortical α-synuclein/Lewy body plus β-amyloid and tau pathologies - are similar, but clinical differences at onset suggest some dissimilar profiles. Based on recent publications, including the fourth consensus report of the DLB Consortium, a critical overview is provided herein. ⋯ DLB and PDD are important dementia syndromes that overlap in many clinical features, genetics, neuropathology, and management. They are currently considered as subtypes of an α-synuclein-associated disease spectrum (Lewy body diseases), from incidental Lewy body disease and non-demented Parkinson's disease to PDD, DLB, and DLB with Alzheimer's disease at the most severe end. Cognitive impairment in these disorders is induced not only by α-synuclein-related neurodegeneration but by multiple regional pathological scores. Both DLB and PDD show heterogeneous pathology and neurochemistry, suggesting that they share important common underlying molecular pathogenesis with Alzheimer's disease and other proteinopathies. While we prefer to view DLB and PDD as extremes on a continuum, there remains a pressing need to more clearly differentiate these syndromes and to understand the synucleinopathy processes leading to either one.