The detection of sensitivity of proprioception by a new clinical test: the dual joint position test.

OBJECTIVES: To date, very few studies have paid attention to the joint sense (proprioception) of toes other than the big toe. We evaluated the sensitivity of joint position sense at the joint of the great toe in comparison to other digits, and with that determined by the dual digit stimulation test, in a sample of healthy normal controls and patients with clinical diagnosis of the lemniscal system dysfunction. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Seventy-two patients with lemniscal system dysfunction (55 clinically definitive multiple sclerosis, 17 vasculitis) and 110 healthy volunteers participated in the study. All subjects underwent the joint position sense test of all digits of upper and lower extremities. The position sense resulting from the combined operation of the joints of the second and the fourth digits (simultaneous two digits position sense) was also measured and subsequently compared with the results of the great toe position sense. RESULTS: Upper extremities: no difference was found in recognition of the position sense in the single digits of the upper extremities between patients and healthy volunteers. There was a significant difference in the dual joint position test of the right upper extremity between patients and the case group (p<0.05) but not in the left upper extremity. Lower extremities: there was no significant difference in proprioception of the great toe neither in the right and nor in the left side between patients and normal subjects. However, the joint position sense of other single digits was deteriorated in the patients, a difference that was significant compared to normal controls (p<0.05). Additionally, patients and normal controls displayed a difference in dual digit position sense of the right and left lower extremities (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: We show in this paper that the proprioception of simultaneous dual digits is diminished in patients when compared to a single digit position sense. Moreover, the great toe proprioception is less sensitive than other digits. Taken together, these observations lend evidence for a new clinical method which we named as dual joint position test. We suggest this novel method offers clinical utility to demonstrate lemniscal system dysfunction.

Headaches related to psychoactive substance use.

AIM: To investigate a possible association between headache and psychoactive substance use. METHODS: 1055 psychoactive substance abusers were consecutively admitted. All patients filled out a detailed headache questionnaire and 1015 patients were included. RESULTS: Twenty seven percent of patients reported having headache. Eighteen percent of patients reported having headache attributed to a substance or its withdrawal and 1.4% had unclassified headache. The most commonly used substances were cannabis (80.5%), alcohol (74.6%), methylamphetamine (18.7%), benzodiazepine (10.4%), volatile solvent (5.8%), cocaine (4.4%), heroin (2.1%), opioids (0.5%), and other substances (1.7%). Fifteen patients reported that onset of headache occurred prior to onset of substance use, while 94.5% had headaches occurred after substance abuse. A higher incidence of headache was found in the benzodiazepine, methylamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, volatile solvent abusers. Seventy-eight percent of headache patients have never sought help from a physician despite the severity and frequency of headache. CONCLUSIONS: In our study, the prevalence of headache among all psychoactive substance abusers was 26.9%. Although this is one-group study without any comparison with non-addict population and associational data must be interpreted with caution, the results of this study indicate a possible relationship may exist between headache and substance use since 94.5% of substance users described headaches after the onset of substance use. The younger start and the longer duration of cannabis use caused the higher incidence of headache, but this correlation was not observed in other substance use. Migraine was far more prevalent in the abusers than in previously reported community populations.

Unusual presentations of Hashimoto's encephalopathy: trigeminal neuralgiaform headache, skew deviation, hypomania.

Hashimoto's encephalopathy (HE) is a term used to describe an encephalopathy of presumed autoimmune origin characterized by high titers of antithyroid-peroxidase antibodies. We describe three patients showing unusual clinical presentations like trigeminal-neuralgia, skew deviation, hypomania associated with HE. The purpose of this article is to describe the patients with unusual clinical pictures of HE, something that has not been reported in elsewhere in medical literature.

Focal status epilepticus induced by hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

INTRODUCTION: generalized tonic clonic (GTC) seizure activity because of central nerve system oxygen toxicity is a rare but recognized effect of HBOT (hyperbaric oxygen therapy). Almost all case reports and database analyses about the relationship between seizure activity and HBOT point out that GTC seizures and status epilepticus are more likely to occur as a result of the treatment and there are only few reports demonstrating partial seizures. CASE REPORT: an 87-year-old male patient was admitted to our clinic because of tonic-clonic contractions on his left arm. He was under HBOT because of a decubitis ulcer. After repeated exposures to hyperbaric oxygen, he had contractions on his left arm. He was diagnosed as focal motor status. There was no evidence of acute ischemia or mass lesion on brain magnetic resonance imaging. IV phenytoin (diphenylhydantoin) 20 mg/kg was given over 30 minutes and continued orally with phenytoin at a dose of 300 mg/d. He had no subsequent seizures. CONCLUSION: GTC seizures or status epilepticus as a result of GTC seizures are more common than focal seizures as neurologic complications of HBOT. Partial seizures as a neurologic complication of HBOT have rarely been reported and to our knowledge, this is the first case which is characterized by focal status epilepticus induced by HBOT.

Fasciculations in brain death.

OBJECTIVES: Brain death is the colloquial name for human death determined by tests showing irreversible cessation of the clinical functions of the brain. Spontaneous and reflex movements have been described in brain death. The aim of this report is to describe a brain-dead patient with unusual motor movements. DESIGN AND SETTING: The patient was followed and her motor movements were videotaped. PATIENT: We report the presence of extensive and long-lasting fasciculations in a patient who fulfilled the criteria for brain death. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: We describe and show on videotape a brain-dead patient with rare motor movements. CONCLUSION: We suggest that fasciculations outlined in this study has to be accepted as motor symptoms in brain death patients.

Blood pressure changes in migraine patients before, during and after migraine attacks.

Migraine attacks are characterized by headaches associated with neurological, gastrointestinal, and autonomic symptoms. A relationship between migraine and hypertension or hypotension is controversial. In this study, we aimed to determine if blood pressure changes were related to migraine attacks. From the outpatient clinic of our neurology department, 62 normotensive migraine patients with and without aura were chosen for study in accordance with the International Headache Society 2004 criteria. A questionnaire including general and specific questions was given to the patients to be filled out during 6 consequent migraine attacks. The patients received a fully automatic digital brachial upper arm sphygmomanometer (Omron M 4-1) to measure the changes in their blood pressure during attacks. The patients were asked to record their blood pressure changes 3 times: (1) just before or very early, (2) during (when headache peaks), and (3) 1 hour after the attack. Twenty-three of the 62 patients (57 women, 5 men) had migraine with aura (22 women and 1 man), and 39 of them did not have aura (35 women and 4 men). There was no statistically significant difference between systolic and diastolic values obtained before or very early, during the peak level, and 1 hour after the end of the attacks (P > 0.05). Although diastolic hypotensive values were not different statistically between groups, when all the patients were considered, diastolic hypotensive values were detected in a considerable number of patients (a total of 115 measurements). In this normotensive migrainous population, we observed that diastolic hypotension before or very early, during, and after migraine attack was the most significant result (5.1%). Although it was not statistically significant, the total number of hypotensive values was remarkable.

Chronic migraine: a prospective descriptive clinical study in a headache center population.

This study describes the pain characteristics of the chronic migraine, including duration, intensity, quality, aggravation by activity, associated features in a headache clinic. One hundred twenty-one chronic migraine patients were evaluated. A total of 79% patients were female, and the mean age was 43.6 years, ranging from 19.0 to 54.2 years. The pain characteristics were predominantly unilateral; either side attacks (43.8%), strictly left-side (19%), or right side (19%). Headache character was reported as throbbing (67%), aching (14%), stabbing (10%), and pressure (9%). Of the associated autonomic features, lacrimation was the most common. Photophobia (83.5%) and phonophobia (72.7%) often were noted. When compared, only previous headache diagnosis, headache character and onset of headache were found to be statistically different between female and male patients (P < 0.05).