Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Jul 1995
Meta AnalysisDexamethasone treatment for acute bacterial meningitis: how strong is the evidence for routine use?
A methodological appraisal of the published randomised controlled trials on the use of dexamethasone as an adjunct treatment in acute bacterial meningitis was carried out to examine whether the available evidence is strong enough to support the routine use of the drug. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they were published in indexed journals after 1966, written in English, and were randomised controlled trials with dexamethasone as adjunct to antimicrobials in patients with acute bacterial meningitis. All studies were extracted and their adherence to eight methodological principles was graded as adequate, inadequate, or unclear. ⋯ It is concluded that the available evidence is not strong enough to support a routine use of dexamethasone in acute bacterial meningitis. Further research is needed to determine the effect of a policy to use dexamethasone early in the management of suspected acute bacterial meningitis. Future studies should adopt a pragmatic approach, be methodologically rigorous, and meticulously measure the risk as well as the benefit of this policy.
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Jul 1995
Frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease: retrospective differentiation using information from informants.
The study examined the feasibility of differentiating frontotemporal dementia from Alzheimer's disease on the basis of retrospective historical information obtained from relatives of patients. A structured questionnaire was devised of patients' symptoms, with emphasis on those cognitive and neuropsychiatric features found in earlier prospective clinical studies to distinguish the two conditions. The questionnaire was given to close relatives of deceased patients in whom the diagnosis of non-Alzheimer's frontotemporal degeneration of Alzheimer's disease had been verified at necropsy. ⋯ A scoring system separated out individual patients with frontotemporal dementia from those with Alzheimer's disease. It is concluded that it is possible to obtain useful information about the precise pattern of dementia from informants even many years after the patient's death. The questionnaire provides the foundation of a diagnostic instrument for use in family history studies of dementia.