Articles: patients.
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During serious illness, patient preferences regarding life-sustaining treatments play an important role in medical decisions. However, little is known about life-sustaining preference stability in this population or about factors associated with preference change. ⋯ More than two thirds of seriously ill patients prefer CPR for cardiac arrest and 80% had stable preferences over 2 months. Factors associated with preference change suggest that depression may lead patients to refuse life-sustaining care. Providers should evaluate mood state when eliciting patients' preferences for life-sustaining treatments.
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The contingent negative variation (CNV) is a slow cortical potential recorded from the scalp. This method allows the pathophysiology of chronic headaches to be elucidated. When assessed during the pain-free interval patients suffering from migraine without aura show significantly more negative amplitudes than healthy controls. ⋯ When migraine patients are assessed a few days before a migraine attack occurs, they show pronounced negativity, which normalized during the attack. Despite these interesting findings that are based on group comparisons, evaluating the CNV on an individual basis does not allow specific conclusions. Thus, assessment of the CNV is an important tool to examine pathophysiological aspects of chronic headaches, but is not suitable as a diagnostic procedure.
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Delay is common in diagnosis of colon cancer, its prognostic effect, however, is debatable. A retrospective study of patients with colon cancer was carried out at Landspitalinn University Hospital, covering a period of 12 years. Symptoms and survival were noted, as well as delay in diagnosis. ⋯ Symptoms, staging and survival of patients with colon cancer at Landspitalinn during the 12 year time period studied, proved to be similar to reports from our neighbouring countries, though in our study more patients were unfavourably Duke's staged (C or "D"). The delay in diagnosis from the onset of symptoms was also similar to that reported by foreign authors. It is clear that a considerable delay is common, however, it does not seem to bring about less favourable staging or worse survival.
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Rev Esp Anestesiol Reanim · Jun 1996
Comment[Can we change the patient's image of the anesthesiologist?].
To determine whether provision of an information sheet during the preanesthesia visit to the patient, and general recommendations for anesthesia, can change patients' image of the anesthesiologist. ⋯ The image of anesthesiology and the anesthesiologist can be improved by systematically providing an information sheet to patients who are scheduled for presurgical study.
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Painful swelling of the calf is a common clinical problem. Distinguishing deep venous thrombosis from pseudothrombophlebitis can be difficult Pseudothrombophlebitis syndrome has been associated with ruptured/dissecting popliteal synovial cysts, localized myositis, inflammatory pseudotumor, popliteal artery aneurysm, and ruptured gastrocnemius, popliteal and/or plantaris tendon/muscles. In this report, we describe two patients for whom magnetic resonance imaging rapidly and accurately identified the cause of pseudothrombophlebitis, thus helping to avoid further testing and unnecessary anticoagulation.