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Biomedical subjects

J T Hutton

Publications and source records attributed to J T Hutton.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1987

Abnormal ocular motor function predicts clinical diagnosis of familial ataxia.

Ocular motor performance was significantly impaired in familial ataxia patients as compared with normal controls. Ataxic patients showed prolonged saccadic latencies, longer saccadic refixation times, reduced visual tracking performance, and increased hypermetria. Cutoff values were derived and applied to 15 subjects at risk for developing familial ataxia. Three of 15 showed abnormal values in three or more of four categories of ocular motor performance. Within 3 years, all three subjects were diagnosed on clinical grounds as having familial ataxia. We conclude that ocular motor performance is impaired in familial ataxia and may prove useful for earlier diagnosis.

Eye Movements↗
PubMed1987

Alzheimer's disease: evolving clinical concepts and management strategies.

The prevalence of Alzheimer's disease is rising dramatically. This increase results from a "graying" of our population and a redefinition of the term Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease is recognized to be a progressive neurologic disorder of unknown cause but is not associated with any increased cerebral arteriosclerosis as compared to age-matched controls. The course of the illness on average is about ten years. A variety of inclusion and exclusion criteria, if used conservatively, can accurately predict the pathologic diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. Whereas no specific cause or clearly effective treatment is currently available, care consists of pharmacologic therapy aimed at specific symptoms and measures designed to reduce patient confusion and care-giver burden. The physician can benefit the patient and care giver by providing an accurate diagnosis, providing therapy where available, counseling the family, and providing referrals to available community-support services.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1986

Lateral saccadic latencies and handedness.

Lateral saccadic latencies were determined in 18 right-handers and 18 left-handers. Within the right-handed group the mean latency was significantly shorter when looking from the left to the right (242.7 msec) than from right to left (265.0 msec), whereas no significant directional difference was found in the left-handed group. An age effect was also found with longer latencies being associated with increased age. These findings agree with those of Pirozzolo and Rayner (Neuropsychologia 18, 225-229, 1980) and provide further evidence of the pervasiveness of functional asymmetry in the human brain. The present findings suggest that motoric or central integrative mechanisms may contribute more to saccadic directional asymmetries than do perceptual differences.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Families of Alzheimer's victims. Family support to the caregivers.

This study examined the instrumental and social-emotional support provided by families to the primary caregivers of Alzheimer's patients. It was anticipated that the more adequate the support provided by the family, the less sense of burden and the better the coping effectiveness of the caregiver. Ratings of instrumental assistance, social-emotional support, adequacy of support, and coping effectiveness were made by trained raters from transcribed interviews with 23 primary caregivers. Also, a second family member who was usually next closest of kin to the caregiver was interviewed in order to provide another perspective of the support the family provided. While the major caregiving tasks were performed by the primary caregiver, the types of assistance from family that seemed most appreciated were visits and having persons stay with the patient so that the caregiver could take a trip, rest, run errands, or get out of the house for social activities. The majority of caregivers felt a high degree of support from their families and reported low levels of emotional upset resulting from family support efforts. The most common family problems reported were lack of visits, disagreement over level of patient's mental and physical functioning, and disagreement over the type of care required. The data confirmed the hypothesis that family support was positively associated with the caregiver's coping effectiveness. In addition, caregivers who did not receive enough support were most burdened; however, the group receiving the greatest amount of support was the next most burdened, a finding which was unanticipated.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1986

Clinical neurophysiology of dementia.

The role of EEG in the study of the dementias is to help in the differential diagnosis of the multiple causes of this syndrome. EEG is useful in differentiating early on between treatable and as of now untreatable forms of dementia. Space-occupying lesions that give rise to dementia are reliably detected by EEG. Infectious, toxic, and metabolic processes are associated with early and severe electroencephalographic abnormalities. The "slow virus" infections show characteristic electrical patterns that reliably distinguish them from the cortical or subcortical dementias. Finally, the EEG may contribute to distinguishing between Alzheimer's disease and MID, two commonly occurring forms of dementia. The paucity of substantial early EEG abnormalities in Alzheimer's disease, although helping to differentiate it from other dementias, leaves us without a currently available physiologic test that provides positive evidence for this condition. Recent studies of EPs, however, suggest that some intermediate latency VEP components may be delayed in patients with Alzheimer's disease when compared with normal subjects. This is encouraging, as latencies in VEPs are more reliable and less variable than amplitude that has previously been reported as "abnormal" in some early Alzheimer patients. Long latency ERPs and CNV also show early abnormalities in Alzheimer's disease. Tests of eye movements such as ERPs are psychophysiologic tests requiring some degree of patient cooperation. Performance on tests of ocular smooth pursuit correlate highly with severity of the dementia syndrome in Alzheimer's disease. In contrast, smooth pursuit testing is usually normal in elderly patients with pseudodementia of depression, suggesting this test may be of some value in differentiating these two clinical disorders. Some evidence exists that smooth pursuit eye movements are also normal, at least in the early and middle stages, in Pick's disease, again suggesting that eye movement testing may prove to have some utility in differentiating this form of dementia from Alzheimer's disease. Ocular scanpaths are abnormal in dementia. They typically are poorly organized and at times perseveratory. In addition, the average durations of eye fixations during directed visual search are altered in dementia as compared with normals. The average eye fixation durations are longer with Alzheimer's disease and briefer in patients with frontal lobe tumors as compared with elderly normal controls. These group differences suggest differing scanning strategies for these two forms of dementia.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Alzheimer Disease↗
PubMed1985

Role of the senile plaque in neuropeptide deficits of Alzheimer's disease.

Senile plaques participate in a cropping of the dendritic tree of enkephalinergic dentate granule cells and hl and subicular pyramidal cells. Somatostatin-containing pyramidal neurons are lost in Alzheimer's disease, whereas nonpyramidal somatostatin neurons are less affected. Fibers containing somatostatin penetrate immature, but not end-stage senile plaques. The senile plaque may precipitate much of the hippocampal denervation seen in Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer Disease↗
PubMed1985

A case-control study of dementia of the Alzheimer type.

A case-control study to assess factors of possible etiologic significance to dementia of the Alzheimer type was conducted with 78 male cases diagnosed in 1979-1982 at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota and age-race-sex-matched hospital and neighborhood controls (14 of 16 autopsied cases were histopathologically confirmed). Information was obtained on variables relevant to vital, genetic, and immunologic hypotheses, and on possible occupational and environmental exposures, drug use, psychologic stress, smoking, and alcohol consumption. The only major difference between patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type and controls was a significantly greater occurrence of antecedent head trauma in the patients (odds ratio = 4.50). This finding is consistent with the literature on posttraumatic dementia but its importance is presently unclear.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

Head injury as a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease.

A case-control study was performed in which the frequency of prior head injury was assessed in 78 patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) and 124 control subjects matched for age, sex, and race. A history of head injury with loss of consciousness was reported in 25.6% of patients and 5.3% and 14.6% of hospital and neighborhood controls, respectively. Matched-pair analysis of patients and hospital controls yielded an odds ratio of 4.50, which was significant (p less than 0.01). The ranges of times of occurrence of head injuries were similar in patients and controls, spanning several decades. The findings suggest a possible etiologic role for head injury in DAT.

Aged↗
PubMed1984

Controlled-release carbidopa/levodopa in the treatment of Parkinsonism.

Controlled release carbidopa/levodopa (CSR-1) was compared to standard carbidopa/levodopa in a double-blind, crossover study of 20 Parkinson's disease patients. The most consistent finding in a variety of clinical measurements was the superiority of standard carbidopa/levodopa to CSR-1. Increased dosages of CSR-1 resulted in reduced Parkinson symptoms, suggesting that a more potent controlled-release formulation might prove to be more efficacious than CSR-1.

Aged↗
PubMed1984

Eye tracking dysfunction in Alzheimer-type dementia.

Performance on visual tracking tasks was measured in groups of Alzheimer-type dementia, pseudodementia of depression, and elderly normal controls. Smooth pursuit tracking errors were identified by counting the number of catch-up saccades required to compensate for failure of the smooth pursuit system. The group with Alzheimer-type dementia had significantly worse (p less than 0.0001) smooth pursuit tracking than either pseudodementia subjects or elderly normal controls. A strong correlation (r = 0.74, p less than 0.005) was found in Alzheimer patients between severity of visual tracking abnormality and severity of dementia.

Aged↗
PubMed1983

Variables affecting eye tracking performance.

The effect of age and gender on eye tracking performance was studied in normal healthy subjects. Two measures of tracking performance, phase corrected cross-correlation coefficients and number of catch-up saccades were determined. The cross-correlation measures revealed a differential effect with the elderly men demonstrating significantly better tracking performance than elderly women. An aging effect was found in women and an aging trend in men using the catch-up saccade measure. Other variables influencing tracking performance, in addition to age and sex, were target speed and type of measure. Recognition of this differential effect largely explains the existing controversy as to whether age or sex variables influence tracking performance.

Age Factors↗