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Biomedical subjects

F Andrasik

Publications and source records attributed to F Andrasik.

79 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

Pharmacological treatment of aggressive behavior and emesis in the Cornelia de Lange Syndrome.

Chlorpromazine and fluphenazine decanoate were employed to treat aggressive behavior and emesis in a 22-year-old patient with Cornelia de Lange syndrome. Institution of the above neuroleptics, following an unsuccessful trial of diazepam, produced reductions of 95.1 per cent and 37.9 per cent for aggressive behavior and emesis, respectively. Four follow-up observations, occurring at 3-week intervals, revealed maintenance of low rates of aggressive behavior and continued reductions in emesis (mean reduction of 81.5 per cent). These findings are important for their a) inclusion of direct behavioral observation as the data base, and b) initial promising effects of neuroleptics for a rare mental retardation syndrome.

Adult↗

Assessing the readability of thirty-nine behavior-modification training manuals and primers.

Thirty-nine behavior-modification training manuals and primers, sampling various topical areas, were subjected to a readability analysis. Reading-ease scores were computed by the formula developed by Flesch. The texts sampled ranged from very difficult (appropriate for college graduates) to fairly easy (appropriate for readers at the seventh-grade level).

Journal Article↗

Use of the Migraine Disability Assessment Questionnaire in children and adolescents with headache: an Italian pilot study.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the suitability of the Migraine Disability Assessment (MIDAS) Questionnaire for assessing disability in children and adolescents with headache and to obtain preliminary information about disability in different primary headaches. BACKGROUND: During the last decade, researchers have begun to employ standardized methodologies to investigate the global impact of primary headaches. Disease-specific instruments have been developed to measure headache-related disability. The MIDAS Questionnaire, which is the most extensively studied of these instruments, was designed to assess the overall impact of headaches over the 3 months before compilation. The MIDAS Questionnaire is an optimal tool to assess headache-related disability in adults. METHODS: Ninety-five patients aged 7 to 17 years with tension-type headache, migraine, or both completed the validated Italian form of the MIDAS questionnaire on 2 occasions. Test-retest reliability was assessed by the Spearman rank correlation test. The Cronbach alpha assessed internal consistency. The patients answered questions about the adequacy of the questionnaire. RESULTS: The Cronbach alpha was.8. Correlation coefficients were generally high for the overall MIDAS score and for the items investigating disability in school and in family/leisure activities; they were lower for the items about housework. Most patients thought that the MIDAS Questionnaire was useful (98.9%) and that it captured the impact of their headaches (58.9%); 41% thought that questions about disability in housework were useless, 44.2% suggested adding questions regarding inability to do homework. All primary headaches had a considerable impact on daily activities, but patients with migraine tended to have lower headache frequencies and lower total disability time; those with tension-type headache suffered more days in which activities, although performed, were substantially impaired. CONCLUSIONS: The MIDAS Questionnaire is useful for assessing disability in children and adolescents with different primary headaches. Minimal changes in the phrasing and content of the items would be sufficient to render the MIDAS specific for the younger population with headache.

Adolescent↗

Three studies of the psychologic changes in chronic headache patients associated with biofeedback and relaxation therapies.

Three separate, but similar, studies are described in which the psychologic effects (depression, anxiety, and overall degree of psychosomatic distress) of nonpharmacologic treatment (relaxation and/or biofeedback training) for three kinds of chronic headache (tension, migraine, and mixed migraine and tension) were evaluated. Results showed consistently (across all three studies) significant reductions in depression and trait-anxiety associated with receiving treatment, regardless of headache type or treatment outcome. The significant reduction for overall degree of psychosomatic distress was not differentially related to receiving treatment and thus could have been due to prolonged monitoring of headaches or test-retest regression effects.

Adult↗