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Biomedical subjects

P Duverger

Publications and source records attributed to P Duverger.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

[Food avoidance emotional disorder in 3 to 10-year-old children: a clinical reality].

We underline the clinical importance of a specific eating disorder in 3 to 10 years old children, when the majority of the works about the prepubertal eating disorders focus either on the period just preceding adolescence (often between 10 and 13 years), or on the second half of the first year of the baby. Within the eating disorders described in the literature, we compare the clinical presentation of most of these 3 to 10 years old children with the food avoidance emotional disorder described during adolescence. These problems of eating behaviour (various selective eating with or without provoked vomiting) are ignored for a long time in these young children because of quite a satisfactory growth, but these children are often seen in emergency rooms because of a brutally complete eating refusal. Therapeutic consultations allow these children to express their fears about diseases, poisoning and death, for themselves or for their close relations, in particular the mother, without endangering their body. The early recognition and care of these difficulties of conciliation between the body and the thoughts impose a narrow collaboration between paediatric and psychiatric staffs.

Age Factors↗

[Neonatal death of a newborn twin].

In France, in 2001, 33,000 children were born from multiple pregnancies (4.2% of births). Lately, with the stimulated fertilization improvement, this number has strongly increased. These pregnancies are pretty often difficult and the hospitalizations of the twins (or other multiples) in a neonatal intensive care unit are more frequent than in a single pregnancy (48 vs. 5.3%). Newborn twin death leads the parents to face a tough mourning because of the surviving twin presence. The psychiatrist's function is crucial with the parents, the deceased child, the surviving child and the pediatric staff. Therefore, as much as possible, the psychiatrist (or the psychologist) has to gather and work through the confused feelings of the parents. Several splittings occur in this situation. Some of these splittings concern the medical staff, some others affect the children, the dead one and the living one, either rejected and disinvested or idealized and overprotected. The child psychiatrist is a preferred recipient for the different projections of the parents.The hospital staff as a whole has to understand their full significance and their important psychic sparing for the couple. As the deceased child, the psychiatrist may look bad and unsatisfying, for instance: "he doesn't answer as we would like", "he doesn't come up to the couple's expectations", "he doesn't talk enough", "he's leaving too soon", etc.In addition, the psychiatrist may be attacked as the representative of the pediatric staff, in order to preserve in a better way the others medical protagonists, still essential for the survival of the alive child. These parents are in mourning and the psychiatrist must help them in this process in order to improve the specific investment of the surviving child, the attachment and the communication with him.

Bereavement↗

[General practitioners' practices and attitudes in regard to suicidal behavior].

As demonstrated at the recent Consensus Conference on the "suicidal crisis" held by the French Psychiatry Union and the National Agency for the Accreditation and the Evaluation of Care, suicide is recognised as a current public health problem. The general practitioner's role is situated on two levels: in a preliminary stage, the early identification of risk, and in a secondary stage, the provision of care at the time of a suicide attempt and then the provision of on-going follow-up care in partnership with other special services. The study aimed at evaluating general practitioners' practices when encountered with suicidal patients and assessing their management of suicidal behaviour, as well as difficulties met and their expectations. Responses to a questionnaire were received from 290 general practitioners in one regional department in France. The results revealed that two-thirds of the respondents considered the identification of suicidal tendencies as being difficult, in particular with regard to the detection of young people at risk. General hospitals are the most common structures where patients are referred to in the event of a suicide attempt, as a facility that is permanently open and capable of delivering ambulatory care. A majority of the general practitioners expressed the need for training which was focused on methods for the early identification of risk as well as the development of listening skills.

Aftercare↗

[Is an authorization for care necessary for the incapacitated adult?].

We report the case of a 30-year-old mentally disabled patient who presented for diagnostic colonoscopy. This patient raised the problem of authorization for such a procedure and the related anaesthetic. The French law of 1968 on the protection of severely incapacitated persons does not clearly solve the problem of the consent for procedures with a therapeutic finality. The distinction relies usually on the extent of the planned act, for asking for an agreement of the guardian, judge of guardianship or the family board. In such cases the problem of the practice of an anaesthetic remains unsolved. For scheduled procedures it is recommended to obtain the written consent of the guardian before any medical act.

Adult↗

[Suicidal impulses in patients with chronic viral hepatitis C during or after therapy with interferon alpha].

UNLABELLED: We report 5 cases of psychiatric side effects in patients treated with alpha interferon for chronic viral C hepatitis. The first case includes depression with suicidal impulses without a suicide attempt; there was a positive rechallenge of interferon. In the second and third cases, depression occurred during interferon therapy, but has not disappeared after interferon withdrawal. In the 4th and 5th cases, depression occurred after interferon withdrawal. Overall, suicide was attempted in 4 cases after interferon withdrawal and was responsible for 2 deaths. The prevalence of suicide attempts during the 6 to 12 months of interferon therapy was 0% compared to 1.3% during the 6 months after interferon therapy (P < 0.05) in 306 patients with chronic hepatitis C treated by interferon in our local area network during the same period. IN CONCLUSION: a) depression does not always disappear after interferon is discontinued; b) regular psychiatric follow-up is justified during treatment with interferon; c) psychiatric supervision should be continued, even more frequently after interferon withdrawal; d) the increased risk of psychiatric side-effect due to interferon as well as their severity suggest interferon should be administered with caution; e) the role of interferon can only be evaluated in controlled studies including the incidence and predictive value of emotional disorders.

Adult↗

[Acute intracranial subdural hematoma after accidental dural puncture in epidural anesthesia].

A case is reported of an acute intracranial subdural haematoma following an accidental dural puncture during an epidural anaesthesia. A seventy-year old man, class ASA I, was operated on for prostatic adenoma under epidural anaesthesia. Dural puncture occurred during the first introduction of the needle into the L4-L5 epidural space. Epidural anaesthesia was nevertheless obtained by introducing the catheter at the L3-L4 level. The immediate peroperative and postoperative course was uneventful, apart from persisting headache. After removing the epidural catheter at 24 h postoperatively, the patient received calcium heparinate. 26 h later, he complained of worsening headache and became rapidly deeply comatose. The computer tomographic scan showed air in the ventricles and a large right-sided subdural haematoma which was immediately discharged. Although the link between subdural haematoma and dural puncture is well known, the acuteness and rapidly fatal evolution of this case were exceptional and may have been facilitated by the big size of the needle, dehydration and hypercoagulability.

Aged↗

[Correlation between chemical composition, density, and results of extracorporal lithotripsy in renal and ureteral lumbar calculi].

Based on a series of 388 patients with a total of 466 renal and lumbar ureteric stones (414 kidneys) treated between 1987 and 1990 by extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) using the SONOLITH 3000* apparatus, the authors analyse the indications and results criteria for ESWL. The success criteria adopted excluded any residual fragment and considered patients lost to follow-up as failures. The success rate varied between 48.3% and 73.8% when residual fragments less than 5 mm were included and when drop-outs were excluded. A correlation was established between the radiographic appearance of the stone (dense, smooth, spiculated), its predominant spectrophometric nature and the results of ESWL: low density, spiculated Weddellite (WD) stones gave good results and very dense, smooth Whewellite (WW) stones gave less favourable results. The authors propose a refinement of the indications for ESWL in order to improve the results. Predominantly WW stones may be suitable for primary percutaneous nephrolithotomy.

Adolescent↗