The Prevention of Undulant (Malta or Mediterranean) Fever
Sir Arthur Newsholme in The Story of Modern Preventive Medicine, 2015
Undulant fever or Malta fever is a severe disease; two per cent of the British troops and sailors attacked by it died. It involved hospital treatment on an average for 120 days, and sometimes had sequela lasting two or even more years. During the illness itself the patient had long continued fever and severe joint pains, and was reduced to a state of great emaciation and weakness from which recovery was slow. In 1887 Bruce found the Mic. melitensis in the blood of patients; and this organism after isolation from the spleen-pulp of several fatal human cases was found to fulfil the postulates of Koch. In 1905 W. H. Horrocks found the Mic. melitensis in the milk of apparently healthy goats, and further investigations showed that blood serum derived from goats in the island usually gave positive agglutination results when tested against the Mic. melitensis.
Anorexia
Joy Melville in First Aid in Mental Health, 2018
Anorexia nervosa is a condition in which there is a profound aversion to food, often leading to severe self-starvation and emaciation. Sufferers will rigidly control the amount they eat, and have an abnormal fear of regaining normal weight. Physical effects include drastic weight loss, hyperactivity, amenorrhoea, constipation, dizziness, dehydration and oedema. Anorexia also has an effect mentally. The obedient, well behaved child of overprotective parents is particularly vulnerable. A docile acceptance of parental authority is often behind the child's wish to assert some sort of control over her life – and the easiest, if not the only, thing to control is appetite. The other advantages of hospital are that the person is taken away from the situation which has caused the disorder; and at some hospitals psychotherapy and counselling services are available. Without the help of a therapist, sufferers will retain their obsessional attitude towards food, and regress once home.
PHASES IN CAREGIVING
Emile Franssen, Liduin Souren in Broken Connections: Alzheimer's Disease: Part I, 1994
How ill is the patient with Alzheimer’s disease? He usually looks quite healthy and exhibits no signs of physical suffering, such as emaciation, shortness of breath or pain. During the greater part of the course of the illness there are no clear symptoms of physical disability, such as occur for instance in patients with serious arthritis or after a stroke. An extensive physical examination does not usually reveal anything particular. The patient does not as a rule seem subject to evident prolonged mental suffering, such as occurs with someone with a serious depression. He quite often even makes a carefree impression to the outsider.
Coexistence of Two β-Globin Gene Deletions in a Chinese Girl with β-Thalassemia Minor
Published in Hemoglobin, 2014
Ge Huang, Ping Li, Yun-Xiong Li, Lian-Zhen Ye
This study reports a rare case of β41/42,Cap/βA genotype in a girl with β-thalassemia (β-thal) minor. The 13-month-old Chinese proband suffered anemia, diarrhea, stunted growth and emaciation. The routine polymerase chain reaction-reverse dot-blot (PCR-RDB) test result for β-thal mutations indicated that she was a compound heterozygote for β41/42 and βCap. However, the complete blood cell (CBC) test gave the following results: mean corpuscular volume (MCV) 79.8 fL, mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH) 19.9 pg, with a Hb A2 value of 5.66%, suggesting that the proband also was β-thal minor. The proband’s father showed typical microcytic hypochromic anemia characteristics with a decreased MCV and MCH (63.1 fL and 20.9 pg, respectively) and an increased level of Hb A2 (5.60%), while the proband’s mother had normal levels of MCV, MCH and Hb A2. The PCR-RDB test result showed her father was also a compound heterozygote for the β41/42 (HBB: c.126_129delCTTT) and βCap (HBB: c.-11_-8delAAAC) mutations and her mother was normal. Finally, DNA sequencing identified that the β41/42 and βCap mutations of the proband were inherited from her father and located on one β-globin gene, suggesting that the proband’s genotype is β41/42,Cap/βA.
An Autopsy Case of Mitochondrial Myopathy, Encephalopathy, Lactic Acidosis, and Stroke-Like Episodes (MELAS) with Intestinal Bleeding in Chronic Renal Failure
Published in Renal Failure, 2011
Akira Mima, Fumihiko Shiota, Takeshi Matsubara, Noriyuki Iehara, Taro Akagi, Hideharu Abe, Kojiro Nagai, Motokazu Matsuura, Taichi Murakami, Seiji Kishi, Toshikazu Araoka, Fumi Kishi, Naoki Kondo, Reiko Shigeta, Kazuhiro Yoshikawa, Toru Kita, Toshio Doi, Atsushi Fukatsu
A 50-year-old man who underwent hemodialysis (HD) at local outpatient HD center due to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) was transferred to our hospital because of pneumonia. He had severe emaciation and past history of congestive heart failure. Presenting symptoms almost consistently involved difficulty in hearing and recurrent attacks of migraine-like headaches. He was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, showing diastolic mechanical dyssynchrony by tissue Doppler echocardiography. On the day of death, he had hematemesis and hemorrhagic shock. Autopsy revealed perforation of duodenum, and genetic analysis using mitochondrial DNA from cardiac muscle and iliopsoas muscle revealed a 3243A > G mutation in the mitochondrial tRNALeu(UUR) gene, which is related to mitochondrial myopathy, encephalopathy, lactic acidosis, and stroke-like episodes (MELAS). Multiple organ failure due to the mutation of mitochondrial DNA with gastrointestinal bleeding is not a common.
The paradoxical nature of sexuality in anorexia nervosa
Published in Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 1993
Adriaan Tuiten, Geert Panhuysen, Walter Everaerd, Hans Koppeschaar, Paul Krabbe, Pierre Zelissen
Psychosexual dysfunctioning is often put forward as an etiologacal factor in anorexia neroosa. In contrast, we hypothesize that anorexia nervosa patients were in general psychosexually normal before their illness, and that the problems in their sexual life arise only after the emergence of hypogonadism, as a consequence of emaciation. Our study shows that patients, before they became anorectic, were indeed rather similar to normal subjects with respect to sexual attitude. Moreover, patients reported a considerably decreased sexual interest during their anorectic eriod when compared with normal controls. We conclude that these results corroborate our hypotheses. In the discussion wesketch a theoretical account of the origin and course of anorexia neruosa, according to which the hormon and associated psychosexual changes are central to its pathogenesis.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Body Mass Index
- Malnutrition
- Digestion
- Adipose Tissue
- Thinness
- Leanness
- Nutritional Deficiencies