Janice Stevens

Bio: Janice Stevens is an academic researcher. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 30 citations.

Morbus Alzheimer and Morbus Pick

Abstract: ing examples are Mitchell and Keen in neurosurgery. The average army surgeon was sent back to civilian practice a better surgeon, with an increased respect for cleanliness and ventilation of the sick-room. Women who \"nursed\" the wounded began to feel the need for professional training. But these were advances within the individual and not within the body of medicine as a whole. Dr. Adams has done an excellent piece of work in compressing into this one volume the mass of material available. The book abounds with fascinating bits of information, such as Surgeon-General Hammond's order to discontinue the use of calomel and tartar emetic and the uproar that this created among the Army physicians. Today we are accustomed to an adequate pre-induction physical examination for the draftee. Then, however, as the author points out, the examinations were so poorly or hastily conducted that approximately four hundred women were inducted! Physicians of today who feel that the Army physical standards are too low would recoil from the Civil War examiner who passed, with official sanction, incipient tuberculosis and secondary syphilis. The author discusses his topic under the general headings of \"Confusions of 1861,\" \"Beginnings of an Ambulance System,\" \"Wartime Surgery,\" \"Nurses, Staffs, and Convalescents,\" \"Diseases and Treatments,\" etc. There are eight pages of excellent photographs of hospitals, ambulances, and staff. For the statistically minded or the comparative reseacher there is a comprehensive index, which tabulates wounds, diseases, etc., by place, race, date, and kind, with comparisons between Union and Confederate where possible. In writing a book of this kind, an author is faced with two types of internal organization. Either he may develop each theme separately, returning to the beginning of the war with each new topic, or he may develop the book chronologically and discuss all his topics at once, year by year. One wishes the author had made a choice. Instead he has a tendency to pick and choose his dates and chronology, with no system at all. The reader finds Surgeon-General Hammond continually being discharged, goes through first and second Manassas several times, and is kept in a state of confusion about place and date without ever being sure of where Dr. Adams is going to carry him next. For the general reader, unfamiliar with the War in detail, more discussion of purely military history would have been helpful, perhaps in a page at the beginning of each new section. However, Dr. Adams has supplied us with a splendid account of the Union medical forces in a book that must be on the shelves of every amateur in medical or Civil War history. I hope that he will soon publish a companion volume about the gallant gentlemen in grey.

Psychiatric phenomena in Alzheimer's disease. IV, Disorders of behaviour

Abstract: Out of a sample of 178 patients with AD, aggression was present in 20%, wandering in 19%, binge-eating in 10%, hyperorality in 6%, urinary incontinence in 48%, and sexual disinhibition in 7%. Behavioural abnormalities were greater in those with more severe dementia. Temporallobe atrophy correlated with aggression, and widening of the third ventricle with hyperorality. Features of the Kluver-Bucy syndrome were commonly seen, but the full syndrome occurred in only one subject. Patients with at least one feature of the Kluver-Bucy syndrome had greater temporal-lobe atropy than those without any of the features.

Clinical subtypes of dementia of the Alzheimer type.

Abstract: Clinical subtypes of dementia of the Alzheimer type were evaluated by comparing age at onset, aphasia, family history, and motor disorder in 146 individuals with progressive dementia. Early onset was significantly associated with more prevalent and more severe language disorder. Forty-five percent of all probands had familial history of dementia, but we could not differentiate relative familial risk based on age at onset or aphasia. Independent of duration of illness, myoclonus and noniatrogenic extrapyramidal disorder were associated with greater severity of dementia.

Neuropsychological syndromes in presenile dementia due to cerebral atrophy.

Abstract: In a prospective study of 24 patients with presenile dementia associated with cerebral atrophy, clinical and psychological characteristics of patients' disorder were examined in relation to pathological and chemical findings obtained from tissue analysis following cerebral biopsy. The histological features of Alzheimer's disease were found in 75% of cases, but not in 25%. Distinctive patterns of neuropsychological breakdown emerged allowing clinical grouping of patients. While clinical patterns were helpful in differentiating Alzheimer's disease from non-Alzheimer's disease, there was not an absolute concordance between clinical and patho-chemical groupings. The findings, which support the notion that the "cerebral atrophies" represent a heterogeneous group of conditions, have relevance for the clinical diagnosis of presenile dementia.

The clinical effect of lumbar puncture in normal pressure hydrocephalus.

Abstract: Owing to all the difficulties involved in selecting patients with normal pressure hydrocephalus for shunt-operation, a cerebrospinal fluid-tap-test (CSF-TT) is introduced. Psychometric and motor capacities of the patients are measured before and after lumbar puncture and removal of 40-50 ml CSF. Patients fulfilling criteria for normal pressure hydrocephalus were compared to patients with dementia and atrophy shown by computed tomography. Normal pressure hydrocephalus patients showed temporary improvement after lumbar puncture. The extent of the temporary improvement appeared to be well correlated with the improvement after shunt operation. Accordingly, the CSF-TT seems to be of value when selecting those patients who will probably benefit from a shunt operation.

Pick's disease versus Alzheimer's disease A comparison of clinical characteristics

Abstract: The clinical recognition of Pick's disease depends on its differentiation from Alzheimer's disease (AD). To identify distinguishing clinical features, we reviewed the clinical records of 21 patients with pathologically confirmed Pick's disease and matched them by sex, age of onset, and duration of dementia with 42 patients having pathologically confirmed AD. In the absence of temporal or frontal lobar atrophy on CTs, all the Pick patients and none of the AD patients had three of five clinical features: presenile onset (before age 65), an initial personality change, hyperorality, disinhibition, and roaming behavior. In addition, the Pick patients had a tendency toward reiterative and other speech disturbances. These findings suggest that Pick patients are potentially distinguishable from AD patients on the basis of clinical manifestations.