[Analysis of Clinical Pathway in Changing and Disabling Neurological Diseases.]
[Analysis of clinical pathway in changing and disabling neurological diseases.]
Rev Neurol (Paris). 2013 Apr 24;
Cordesse V, Jametal T, Guy C, Lefebvre S, Roussel M, Ruggeri J, Schimmel P, Holstein J, Meininger V
Neurological diseases are characterized by the complexity of care and by a constant and changing disability. More and more frequently, their impact on the clinical pathway remains unknown. Seven postgraduate rehabilitation students (Master coordination du handicap, université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie, Paris) reconstructed the clinical pathway of 123 patients with various neurological diseases: multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, spinal trauma, Parkinson disease and brain tumors. There was a significant correlation between disease duration and the number of specialists involved in care, the number of prescribed drugs and the number of short-term hospitalizations; there was no correlation with age. This result suggests that with time an increasing number of complications related to the initial neurological disease developed. Hospitalization in rehabilitation units was highly correlated with the degree of disability and also with the help received by the patients during the course of their disease. This result suggests that these hospitalizations were a direct consequence of burn out among relatives. General practitioners (GP) were highly involved only during the initial part of the pathway, and their involvement rapidly declined thereafter, suggesting a probable relation with the specificities and the complexity of care for neurological diseases which induces a progressive transfer of responsibilities from the GP to the hospital. Social care was always incomplete and occurred too late during the course of the disease. The feeling by the patients that their care pathway was chaotic was highly correlated with the quality of the information given to the patient at the time of the announcement of their disease. This study confirms that cares for neurological diseases is highly specific and that expert centers and coordination networks are in a key position to ensure an efficient care pathway. HubMed – rehab centers
Central nervous system tumors.
Handb Clin Neurol. 2013; 112: 931-58
Jacques G, Cormac O
Central nervous system tumors are the most frequent malignant tumor in children and the main cause of death in this age group after traffic accidents. The current estimates are that one adult in 2500 is a survivor of a brain tumor that occurred during childhood. These tumors are particularly heterogeneous in terms of histology/biology, treatment, and outcome. They share, however, a high risk of neurological and cognitive morbidity due to the disease itself and the treatment modalities (radiotherapy, surgery, and chemotherapy). Diagnosis is frequently delayed because symptoms are usually nonspecific at the beginning of the evolution. Posterior fossa is the most frequent site and the tumors present most frequently with signs of intracranial hypertension. Supratentorial tumors are more frequent in infants and in adolescents; seizures are not uncommon, especially for benign tumors. When adjuvant treatment is needed, radiotherapy is usually the mainstay apart from some histologies where chemotherapy may be sufficient: low-grade gliomas, desmoplastic medulloblastomas, malignant glial tumors in infants. Multidisciplinary care is best performed in tertiary care centers and should include early rehabilitation programs soon after surgery. HubMed – rehab centers
Bone Age in Children With Obstetrical Brachial Plexus Palsy: Effect of Peripheral Nerve Injury on Skeletal Maturation.
J Child Neurol. 2013 Apr 22;
Oktay F, Cömert D, Gökkaya NK, Ozbudak SD, Uysal H
The purpose of this retrospective study was to analyze the effect of peripheral nerve injury on the skeletal maturation process. The bone ages of the affected and unaffected hand-wrists of 42 children with obstetrical brachial palsy were determined according to the Greulich and Pyle atlas. In 23 patients, the bone ages of the both sides were identical (bone-age-symmetrical group), in 19 patients the bone age of the affected side was delayed (bone-age-delayed group). The mean bone age of the affected side was delayed 0.48 ± 0.25 years that of the unaffected side (P = .000), and the delay of bone age was inversely correlated with chronological age (R (2) = .45, P < .02) in the bone-age-delayed group. Skeletal retardation can be recognized after appearance of ossification centers by plain radiography, dating from the third month of life, in early infancy. Thus, bone age determination method might be helpful for predicting potential future limb shortness. HubMed – rehab centers
Long-term morbidities in stroke survivors: a prospective multicenter study of Thai stroke rehabilitation registry.
BMC Geriatr. 2013 Apr 15; 13(1): 33
Kuptniratsaikul V, Kovindha A, Suethanapornkul S, Manimmanakorn N, Archongka Y
BACKGROUND: Stroke-related complications are barriers to patients’ recovery leading to increasing morbidity, mortality, and health care costs, decreasing patient’s quality of life. The purpose of this study was to quantify incidence and risk factors of stroke-related complications during the first year after discharge from rehabilitation ward. METHODS: A prospective observational study was conducted in nine tertiary-care rehabilitation centers. We evaluated the incidence of morbidities during the first year after stroke, including musculoskeletal pain, neuropathic pain, pneumonia, deep vein thrombosis (DVT), pressure ulcer, spasticity, shoulder subluxation, joint contracture, dysphagia, urinary incontinence, anxiety and depression. The complications at discharge and at month-12 were compared using the McNemar test. Univariate analysis and multiple logistic regression analysis by forward stepwise method were used to determine factors predicting the complications at month-12. RESULTS: Two hundred and fourteen from 327 patients (65.4%) were included. The age was 62.1 +/- 12.5 years, and 57.9% were male. In 76.8% of the patients at least one complication was found during the first year after stroke. Those complications were musculoskeletal pain (50.7%), shoulder subluxation (29.3%), depression (21.2%), spasticity (18.3%), joint contracture (15.7%) and urinary incontinence (14.4%). Other complications less than 5% were dysphagia (3.5%), pressure ulcer (2.6%), infection (1.5%), and neuropathic pain (3.0%). Nearly 60% of patients with complications at discharge still had the same complaints after one year. Only 7.6% were without any complication. Morbidity was significantly associated with age and type of stroke. Using multiple logistic regression analysis, age and physical complications at discharge were significant risk factors for physical and psychological morbidities after stroke respectively (OR = 2.1, 95%CI 1.2, 3.7; OR = 3.1, 95%CI 1.3, 7.1). CONCLUSION: Long-term complications are common in stroke survivors. More than three-fourths of the patients developed at least one during the first year after rehabilitation. Strategies to prevent complications should be concerned especially on musculoskeletal pain which was the most common complaint. Physical complications at discharge period associated with psychological complications at 1 year followed up. More attention should be emphasized on patients age older than 60 years who were the major risk group for developing such complications. HubMed – rehab centers
California Rehab – Rehab.