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Biomedical subjects

F Lhermitte

Publications and source records attributed to F Lhermitte.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

[Influence of choline on amnesia in Alzheimer's disease (author's transl)].

Eight patients with Alzheimer's disease presenting whith memory difficulties and no significant intellectual deterioration were treated with 9 grams daily. Choline base orally for 3 weeks. Quantitative testing, which evaluate memory capabilities such as learning and recall after delays of 1 hour and 24 hours, were used before and after the administration of Choline. The results of a global statistical analysis did not show any significant difference in the performances obtained before and after choline. However, in two patients, recall performance improvement was confirmed clinically. Most likely, these two patients were suffering from an mild foorm of Alzheimer's disease.

Aged↗

[Treatment of multiple sclerosis with antilymphocyte serum: results of a pilot study on 50 patients followed-up over a 4-year period (author's transl)].

Intensive antilymphocyte serum treatment was given to 50 patients with severe, progressive multiple sclerosis for a period of 6 weeks. Conclusions were favourable as regards the possibility of using this treatment and its immunodepressive effect. Therapeutic efficacy is difficult to evaluate, but a favourable impression was obtained from the fact there was improvement and transitory stabilization in some of the patients. These results suggest that the study should be continued, using longer treatment, on more recent cases, and with a randomized control group.

Antilymphocyte Serum↗

Bilateral tactile aphasia: a tacto-verbal dysfunction.

Bilateral tactile aphasia was exhibited by a patient who was operated upon for a left parieto-occipital haematoma. Neuropsychological investigation established the following points: (1) the patient, in whom no expressive or receptive dysphasia could be found, misnamed objects when they were presented to him tactually, whereas he almost always gave the correct name when they were presented visually or auditorily; (2) the naming disturbance was identical when the object was presented to the left hand or to the right hand; (3) not only did the patient have no sensory deficit, but he could give unquestionable proof of correct tactile identification by using the objects presented to him tactually; (4) the defect appeared in the verbo-tactile as well as in the tacto-verbal direction; (5) it was not restricted to the name of the object since the patient was unable to describe, without making dysphasic errors, the morphology or usage of objects presented to him tactually; (6) the tacto-verbal dysfunction did not result from a tacto-visual impairment. Computerized tomography scans showed that: (1) there was no evidence suggesting a lesion of the right hemisphere, nor of the corpus callosum; (2) the left lesion involved the angular gyrus, the posterior part of the second temporal convolution, the inferior longitudinal fasciculus, the geniculostriate fibres and some fibres of the tapetum.

Agnosia↗

[Epidemiology of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the Paris area].

The area studied includes the city of Paris and the neighboring departments of Val-d'Oise, Seine-Saint-Denis, Hauts-de-Seine, Yvelines, Essonne, Val-de-Marne, and Seine-et-Marne. Case finding methods and diagnostic criteria are defined. The temporal and spatial distribution of cases is described, and the absence of case clustering is noted. Incidence per million people (per year) was found to be 1,09 in the city, 0,55 in the adjacent departments, and 0,25 in the peripheral departments. These results are discussed.

Age Factors↗

[Quasi-aphasia associated with thalamic lesions: relation between the language disorder and elective activation of the left hemisphere in 4 cases of left and right thalamic lesions].

The authors report on four patients with vascular lesions of the thalamus, three on the left side and one on the right, two of which were due to haemorrhage and two to infarcts. Language difficulties were observed in those cases with left thalamic lesions only. Speech was either slower or faster than normal, and there were verbal perseveration, semantic paraphasia, and more especially, reduction in verbal fluency with loss of control of logic, causing a true jargon in some tests in certain cases. Articulation, and phonemic programming were unaffected, as were comprehension, reading and writing. A comparison is made between these findings and those reported in the literature. Among the hypo-theses suggested, the authors subscribe to that which accepts the predominant role played by the interruption of the activating system of the left hemisphere by the thalamic lesion. The relative inactivation resulting from this could produce modifications in language dynamics and disturbances in attention in relation to language. The semantic paraphasia could be related to the intrusion of the right hemisphere apparatus into language, because of the lack of balance between the activation of each of the two hemispheres. The fact that thalamic lesions are characterized by language disorders would tend to show that sub-cortical dynamic factors constantly regulate the activation of the hemispheres.

Adult↗

[Chloroquine neuromyopathy. One case in prophylactic maleriatherapy (author's transl)].

A case of neuromyopathy due to chronic chloroquine intoxication is reported. The neuromyopathy developped 9 months after malaria suppression therapy with chloroquine was started. The clinical picture was that of a peripherical neuropathy in the lower limbs and of a generalized myasthenic syndrome. Muscular biopsy showed typical pictures of "vacuolar myopathy". The metabolism of the drug was normal. The patient improved soon after chloroquine was discontinued.

Adult↗

Signs of interhemispheric disconnection in marchiafava-bignami disease.

We report three cases of Marchiafava-Bignami disease. The diagnosis was made on clinical grounds. Evidence of interhemispheric disconnection was found in all three cases. This included left hand anomia, left-sided apraxia, left-hand agraphia, and left-sided pseudoextinction to both visual and tactile stimuli. In two cases, there was a left-ear extinction on a dichotic listening test.

Alcoholism↗

[Abnormal movements of patients with Parkinsonism treated with L-dopa and anomalies of dopamine metabolism].

The authors describe the results of biochemical analysis carried out on 28 patients with Parkinson's disease who had been treated by L-dopa. Twenty of them showed either no abnormal movements at all or very few, eight others had considerable dyskinesia. Biochemical analysis of the urinary degradation products of L-Dopa revealed the existence of a swing in the degradation of dopamine towards 4-O-methylate derivatives in dyskinetic patients (significant difference at .01). The results confirm those obtained in their initial analysis carried out in 1973. The authors express the view that abnormal movements while under L-Dopa treatment are dependent on two factors: one, the hypersensitivity of dopaminergic reception, the other, the greater or lesser preponderance of the COMT isozyme giving rise to 4-O-methylates;

Dopamine↗

[Recording of visual evoked potentials in the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis].

The authors report the results of recording EVP obtained by pattern reversal in 20 controls and 43 patients with "established", "probable" or "possible" MS on the basis of MacAlpine's criteria. Whilst the latency of the wave 1 of the EVP appeared stable in the controls (107.5 msec +/- 7.46), lengthening of the latency of the EVP was seen in 77p. 100 of cases, confirming involvement of the visual pathways, though bulbar neuritis had been known clinically in only 28 p. 100 of patients. The value of this method of recording EVP in contributing to the diagnosis of DS is discussed.

Adolescent↗

["Beginning and end of dose" dyskinesias caused by L-DOPA].

The four cases of dyskinesia at the "beginning and end of dose" caused by L-Dopa presented in this series were characterized by four essential features: 1) their onset at the beginning and end of the period of effectiveness of a dose of L-Dopa + IDC (benserazide); 2) their ballic and dystonic appearance associated with a reinforcement of Parkinsonian signs; 3) the possibility of their reduction by an increase and fractionning of the daily dose of L-Dopa; 4) the particular nature of the underlying Parkinsonian problem in which they were seen, i.e. the young age at onset of the disease, the severity of akinesia, and the quality of the clinical response to L-Dopa. Thus on the basis of the circumstances of their development, their appearance, and their treatment, such forms of dyskinesia at the "beginning and end of dose" appear to be different from classical "mid-dose" dyskinesia. In addition, they pose a new physiolopathological problem.

Benserazide↗