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Biomedical subjects

H S Levin

Publications and source records attributed to H S Levin.

At least 235 records · Page 13Linked to original sources
PubMed1977

Hyperbaric oxygenation in the treatment of postencephalitic amnesic syndrome.

The efficacy of hyperbaric oxygenation in the treatment of an amnesic disorder was studied in a young woman with a residual memory impairment 2 years after Herpes Simplex Encephalitis. Quantitative testing of memory was performed under controlled conditions before, during, and immediately following treatment. There was no systematic change in storage and retrieval of either verbal or essentially nonverbal information when testing was performed during hyperbaric oxygenation or after termination of four daily treatment sessions. The findings support recent studies which have indicated a lack of therapeutic effects of hyperbaric oxygenation on the mental efficiency of older demented patients.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1976

Proprioceptive feedback performance in patients with focal brain lesions.

Utilization of proprioceptive feedback in a manual tracking task was studied in patients with circumscribed unilateral brain lesions. Patients with posterior right hemisphere disease showed severe impairment in performance as compared to those with lesions in other areas of the brain. Increasing the intensity of proprioceptive feedback facilitated the tracking performance of left hemisphere damaged patients while patients with right hemisphere lesions failed to improve. The results were interpreted as supporting the view that the posterior right hemisphere plays a particularly important role in the utilization of proprioceptive information to maintain the position of body parts in space.

Brain Diseases↗
PubMed1976

Anxiety associated with exposure to organophosphate compounds.

Acute organophosphate poisoning is known to result in substantial behavioral abnormalities. We assessed psychiatric manifestations of exposure in workers less substantially exposed to organophosphate compounds and showing no obvious signs of toxicity. Commercial pesticide sprayers and farmers recently exposed to organophosphate agents were compared to control subjects on personality tests, a structured interview, and cholinesterase level. The commercial sprayers but not the exposed farmers showed elevated of anxiety and lower plasma cholinesterase than control subjects. Assessment of other behavioral manifestations and red blood cell cholinesterase failed to disclose other group differences. These findings are viewed as tentative until confirmed by additional study, but they point to the possibility that organophosphate compounds may produce subtle defects in workers who are not obviously toxic. The findings do not justify public alarm but do suggest an area warranting more systematic and definitive investigation.

Agricultural Workers' Diseases↗
PubMed1976

Short-term recognition memory in relation to severity of head injury.

Short-term recognition memory for random shapes was studied in 24 patients with head injury. The severity of head injury as indexed by duration of coma was closely related to impairment in performance. Disruption of short-term recognition memory was associated with neurologic deficit, asphasic disturbance, and signs of brain stem involvement. Performance was not related to association value of the shapes irrespective of linguistic competence. The findings are discussed in relation to recent studies of continuous recognition memory after head injury and hypotheses concerning neurological dysfunction in head injury.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1976

Aphasic disorder in patients with closed head injury.

Quantitative assessment of 50 patients with closed head injury disclosed that anomic errors and word finding difficulty were prominent sequelae as nearly half of the series had defective scores on tests of naming and/or word association. Aphasic disturbance was associated with severity of brain injury as reflected by prolonged coma and injury of the brain stem.

Adult↗
PubMed1976

Behavioral effects of organophosphate in man.

Increasingly widespread application of organophosphate pesticies has underscored the importance of studying their effects on human behavior. Clinical reports and laboratory investigations have generally supported the assumption that neurobehavioral manifestations of organophosphate toxicity are attributable to accumulation of acetylcholine at central and peripheral synapses as a result of cholinesterase inhibition. Despite methodologic shortcomings in many of the published studies, investigators generally agree on the presence of several behavioral sequelae of organophosphate poisoning: (a) impaired vigilance and reduced concentration, (b) slowing of information processing and psychomotor speed, (c) memory deficit, (d) linguistic disturbance, (e) depression, and (f) anxiety and irritability. The few studies of asymptomatic workers at risk for repeated exposure to organophosphate pesticides have produced only equivocal findings concerning the presence of less severe or latent forms of these behavioral abnormalities.

Anxiety↗
PubMed1976

Neuropsychological testing following head injuries: prosopagnosia without visual field defect.

Assessment of residual cerebral dysfunction in the post-traumatic patient poses considerable problems particularly when the neurological examination yields minimal or equivocal findings. The clinical picture is frequently complicated by emotional disturbance not easily differentiated from "post-traumatic neurosis." This report describes such a patient whose disorder was elicidated by neuropsychological testing. Numerous studies have established the validity of neuropsychological tests particularly when they are interpreted by psychologists specifically trained in their use. These procedures are also useful in differentiating patients with neurologic complaints of a nonorganic etiology from patients with similar complaints secondary to confirmed brain lesions. Although the findings reported here pertain to a patient exhibiting a rare neurologic consequence of closed head injury, the methods employed are applicable to subtle behavioral manifestations of diverse etiologies. Neurophyshological findings in a patient unable to recognize faces of familiar persons (prosopagnosia) disclosed a severe impairment of visual perception despite intact visual acuity and fields. The prosopagnosia was also associated with a pervasive memory deficit without dementia. Our results challenge current concepts of prosopagnosia and support the need for neuropsychological evaluation of post-traumatic patients.

Black or African American↗
PubMed1975

Testis tumors: review of 125 cases at the Cleveland Clinic.

One hundred twenty-five cases of testicular tumor are reviewed. The prognostic significance of clinical features, certain laboratory test results, and histologic type are evaluated, and treatment results are presented. The most important prognostic clinical feature is the presence or absence of clinically evident metastases. The urinary gonadotropin levels are useful prognostically, but the intravenous pyelogram and lymphangiogram are statistically unreliable. The presence of tumor in retroperitoneal lymph nodes influenced survival only in the patients with embryonal carcinoma. Tumor type influenced survival more than any other pathologic factor. Vascular invasion, local extension, and Leydig cell hyperplasia did not correlate with tumor behavior in germinal neoplasms. Patients with clinical Stage IA or IB teratocarcinoma had an 85 per cent survival rate with a wide variety of treatment.

Adult↗
PubMed1975

The structural study of the saphenous vein.

From November, 1971, to September, 1974, 1,179 patients received aortocoronary saphenous vein bypass grafts at the Cleveland Clinic Hospital. Segments of saphenous vein from each patient were sent for microscopical analysis. These vein segments were classified as normal or abnormal (phlebosclerotic). Four hundred ninety-six normal vein grafts in 295 patients were restudied and had a patency of 87.9%. One hundred forty-four abnormal vein grafts in 86 patients were restudied and showed 89.5% patency. This study suggests that histopathological identification of an abnormal (phlebosclerotic) vein segment does not constitute a determining factor as far as late patency is concerned in a vein segment that is not grossly sclerotic.

Adult↗
PubMed1975

Bilateral testicular tumors of germ cell origin.

Four cases of primary testicular tumor of germ cell origin are reported. Three cases were bilateral, while the remaining case involved a unilateral tumor in a non-twin brother of 1 patient with bilateral tumors. Because of the increased likelihood of a second primary tumor developing in a patient who has had a malignant germinal cell tumor and because the changes may be subtle, localized to the testis and occur after a tumor-free interval of many years, careful examination of the contralateral testis and long-term followup are indicated even when systemic chemotherapy for malignancy has been used. This is the seventh time familial occurrence of testis tumors in non-twin brothers has been reported but the first time that one of the brothers had bilateral tumors.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1975

Temporal orientation in patients with brain disease.

A brief schedule of questions, based on empirically derived norms, disclosed significant inaccuracy in temporal orientation in 24% of a groups of nonaphasic patients with brain disease. Conventional neurological examination detected temporal disorientation in only 15%. Patients with bilateral lesions showed a higher frequency of temporal disorientation than did those with inilateral lesions. In a group of 15 aphasic patients, 5 (33%) showed evidence of temporal disorientation according to the test while only 3 (20%) were detected on clinical examination. It is suggested that a schedule of questions scored on the basis of empirically derived norms should be incorporated into the neurological examination to assess temporal orientation.

Aphasia↗
PubMed1975

Effects of stereotactic cingulumotomy on a sequential motor task in man.

The effect of bilateral cingulumotomy on sequential tapping behavior was investigated in 6 patients, Contrary to previous clinical studies and predictions derived from data on cingulate lesions in the rat, a consistent decrement in postoperative performance was not found. Temporal integration of behavior in man, as measured in terms of accuracy of sequential motor performance, does not appear to be critically dependent upon the integrity of the cingulum bundle at the level of interruption investigated in the present study.

Adult↗