The effect of cardiac sympathectomy on inhibitory and excitatory cardiac conditioned reflexes in cats.
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Cardiac cephalgia, or headache occurring as manifestation of myocardial ischemia, has only recently been recognized as a distinct entity. In patients with known ischemic cardiopathy, its diagnosis depends on the presence of severe headache that is accompanied by nausea, worsened by physical exercise, and only ceases with nitrate administration. We report on two patients who met diagnostic criteria for this entity. In both, headache was the only symptom of coronary ischemia, and delayed its diagnosis. Headache occurred both at rest and during exertion, and resolved only after the administration of nitrates. Cardiac cephalgia should be suspected in patients with a history of ischemic cardiopathy who present with de novo headache, even when thoracic pain is absent, especially if the headache improves with nitrates. Differential diagnosis with migraine is crucial to avoid the administration of vasoconstrictors.
Cardiac abnormalities develop during chronic renal failure. The prevalence of ischemic heart disease, cardiac failure, and left ventricular disorders is high among patients initiating end-stage renal disease (ESRD) therapy, and appears to be getting higher. Age, gender, race, diabetes, and possibly geographic location are predictive of the presence of several cardiac conditions. Cardiac morbidity after the initiation of ESRD therapy is high, and cardiac causes are the most common reported cause of death. Cardiac abnormalities present on starting dialysis contribute to this morbidity and mortality. In epidemiological studies, higher cardiac death rates have also been associated with dialysis rather than transplantation as mode of ESRD therapy, peritoneal rather than hemodialysis, lower dose of dialysis, and unmodified cellulose rather than modified cellulose/synthetic hemodialysis membranes.
Although death during exercise is rare, vigorous physical activity is associated with increased risk for fatality, particularly in individuals with overt cardiac disease or a high coronary risk profile. The mechanism of death is usually a lethal ventricular arrhythmia, but this may vary depending on the underlying cardiac condition. Cardiac disease is present in the great majority of individuals who die during exercise. In young persons, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and congenital coronary anomalies are most frequent, whereas older victims usually have coronary artery atherosclerosis. Cardiac disease is typically unrecognized before the fatal event in young individuals; in the older group, most have overt coronary disease or identifiable risk factors. Screening asymptomatic subjects to identify increased cardiac risk during exercise is problematical in terms of logistics, expense and accuracy. However, careful evaluation, including exercise testing, is mandatory before a program of increased physical activity is initiated in cardiac patients. For other individuals, firm guidelines are lacking, and the extent of the evaluation must be determined on an individual basis.
Since new vaccines and anti-viral drugs for influenza have become available, collation of actual and country-specific epidemiological data is essential. Since respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a well known paediatric airway pathogen and some epidemiological data exist already, a comparison between influenza and RSV seems warranted. From July 1996 to June 2001 the naso-pharyngeal aspirates (NPA) of children from birth to 16 years of age, admitted to one of the two paediatric hospitals in Kiel, Germany, were investigated by a nine-valent multiplex reverse transcriptase PCR assay. NPA were investigated in 60.8 % of 3,469 children admitted with an acute respiratory tract infection. Community-acquired or nosocomial infections (in parentheses) due to influenza A were diagnosed in 122 (10) children, due to influenza B in 14 (2) and due to RSV in 325 (24) cases. Patients with influenza A (median 752 days) and influenza B (median 966 days) were older than patients with RSV (median 168 days). The spectrum of disease presentation was broader in influenza than in RSV. In each winter, admissions with influenza were less common than those with RSV. Influenza B only occurred in 2 of the 5 years. The cumulative, population-based incidences per 100,000 children 0-16 (0-5, >5-16) years of age were 53 (123, 22) for influenza A, 16 (30, 9) for influenza B and 165 (453, 4) for RSV. Cardiac conditions and asthma were the major risk factors for admission to hospital with influenza A (RR 9.8, 4.1) and RSV (8.5, 2.1) infections. Underlying conditions were most common in influenza B. Low gestational age doubled the risk for admission to hospital with influenza A infection, but did not show a dose-effect relationship as in RSV. The burden of influenza-positive hospitalizations was about one third that of RSV. The incidence was similar to reports from the United States. Targeting children with underlying conditions, especially cardiac conditions and asthma in the German immunization programme is appropriate, as long as no policy for vaccination of the general paediatric population exists.
Heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressures were recorded during classical delay conditioning of rhesus macaque monkeys. When portions of the autonomic nervous system were selectively blocked by pharmacological agents, it appeared that the initial increases in heart rate and blood pressures in response to the conditioned stimulus were the result of increased sympathetic activity and a concomitant decrease in parasympathetic activity. Towards the end of the conditioned stimulus, an increase in parasympathetic activity was indicated. Blockade of the autonomic system which produced total elimination of the conditioned cardiac rate response and substantial reduction or elimination of the conditioned blood pressure response, was not necessarily or always accompanied by a corresponding elimination of the respective unconditioned responses. Such a finding suggests a different underlying neural mediation of these conditioned and unconditioned responses.
Focal deficits, seizures and epilepsy, altered consciousness, and disturbed behaviours can complicate heart diseases and their medical treatment as well as cardiological procedures and cardiac surgery. Neurological complications of common cardiac conditions are discussed. These cardiac conditions are acute myocardial infarction and ischaemic heart disease, atrial fibrillation and cardiac arrhythmias, congestive heart failure, valvular heart diseases, infective endocarditis, congenital heart disease, invasive cardiological procedures and cardiac surgery. As transient ischaemic attack, stroke, seizures and epilepsy are the most common neurological complications, their management is also reviewed. Precautions should be taken to prevent neurological complications of heart disease. Regular surveillance for these complications would allow early diagnosis and initiation of appropriate management.
The purpose of this study was to examine the medical and demographic characteristics of patients who frequently seek emergency care at a pediatric emergency department (ED). Registration information of ED visits during the study period from 11/1/87 to 5/31/92 (4.6 years) was stored in a data base. Patients with 10 or more ED visits during this study period were considered to be "frequent" ED users. Outpatient and inpatient medical records of these patients were manually reviewed. Demographics, chronic conditions, and the acute conditions for each ED visit were coded and analyzed. During the study period, there were 79,049 ED patient visits under 21 years of age. Of the patients born after 1970, there were 47,451 visits by patients seen one or two times, 25,883 visits by patients seen three to nine times, and 5178 visits by 357 patients seen in the ED ten times or more. Ninety-nine patients were seen more than 15 times, 39 patients were seen more than 20 times, 17 patients were seen more than 25 times, and 10 patients were seen more than 30 times. Two hundred sixty-five of the 357 frequent ED users (74%) had chronic disease conditions. Two hundred and twenty-three of them had good functional status, 25 had mild or moderate impairment in carrying out activities of daily living, and 17 had severe impairment of function. The most common chronic medical conditions were recurrent wheezing (226), neurologic conditions (33), gastrointestinal conditions (13), cardiac conditions (12), and endocrine conditions (9). The other 92 were assessed as healthy children. Patients' immunization status were up to date as of the last ED visit during the study period in 329 patients (92%). Pediatricians were the primary care providers in 339 patients (95%). Medical insurance status of patients follows: private insurance (38%), military (0.3%), Medicaid or state assistance (60%), and no insurance (1.4%). Polynesian ethnic groups were over-represented in the cohort of frequent ED users. We conclude that cultural differences appeared to be an important factor associated with frequent ED use by healthy persons. Medical care resources as measured by immunizations, insurance, and identification of a primary care physician did not appear to be deficient in this cohort of frequent ED users. Since recurrent wheezing is a dominant chronic condition among frequent ED users, pediatric emergency medicine training programs may consider the inclusion of the chronic management of wheezing in their curriculum.
The five-hour day visit by the Pope to Coventry Airport on 30 May 1982 required a major exercise in medical planning. First- and second-line first-aid facilities were provided by the British Red Cross Society and the St John Ambulance Association. Hospital facilities were provided in a 30-bed Territorial Army field hospital. The visit attracted a crowd of 350,000; 1424 casualties were seen at first-aid stations and 152 at the field hospital. Twenty patients required transfer to NHS hospitals for further treatment, and one woman died. Most ailments experienced were headaches and effects of heat, blisters, and abdominal symptoms. The field hospital treated a wide range of conditions including cardiac conditions, fractures, premature labour, and acute abdominal emergencies.
Cardiac frequency-domain parameters of the left ventricular pressure were studied in acute experiments on cats under conditions of reflex and load stimulation and during maximum inotropic stimulation with epinephrine. A strict correlation was revealed between the upper threshold of the frequency range and the maximum value of pressure first derivative. Without epinephrine infusion, the maximum value of pressure first derivative and the upper threshold of the frequency range attained 9840 mm Hg/sec and 98.4 Hz, correspondingly. During epinephrine infusion, the corresponding values were 12911 mm Hg/sec and 145 Hz. Left ventricular pressure in cats is characterized by high-frequency parameters, which can be measured by special catheter microtransducers and only in some cases by routine pressure gauges.