Øivind Larsen

Depression and alcohol consumption in non alcoholic and alcoholic women: a clinical study

ABSTRACT— The relationship between level of depression and alcohol consumption was studied in 64 alcoholic women, 80 non alcoholic female psychiatric patients and 72 healthy women, using a clinical, semistructured interview, SADS, SSP and HSCL‐58. Among DSM‐III depressive women, the alcohol consumption was bimodally distributed. Among healthy women, there was an inverse relationship between depressive symptoms and alcohol consumption. Among non alcoholic women dysthymic patients consumed significantly more than major depressive, subclinically depressed and psychotic non depressive patients, and significantly less than healthy, non depressive women. Among alcoholic women, there was no difference in consumption between major depressives, dysthymics and the other diagnostic groups. The results show that there was no general dose‐response relationship between level of depression and alcohol consumption. Anxiety level and personality disorder may be more influential on the alcohol consumption than the level of depression among depressive women.

Family Risk Factors of Alcoholism and Drinking Patterns among Non Alcoholic Women: An Inverse Relationship? An Exploratory Study of Female Employees

95 non alcoholic female employees were personally interviewed and divided into three drinking pattern groups with an increasing level of alcohol consumption: the traditional feminine drinking group (TF) (n=28), the new feminine drinking group (NF) (n=37), and the masculine drinking group (M) (n=30). The groups were compared on family variables which may be regarded as risk factors of alcoholism. The results show an inverse relationship between family risk factors and consumption level, the TF-group having significantly more risk factors than the other two groups. The TF-women more often came from families where the mother and her parents were abstainers, while the father and his parents were more often alcohol abusers or not abstainers. The TF-women were more often attached to their alcoholic fathers as children, while the M-women were more often attached to their mothers. The choice of drinking pattern may be inversely related to the frequency of family risk factors among non alcoholic women.

[«A most strange instance of illness in several siblings» - first description of a rare neurological disease in 1830?].

Was district medical officer Jensen the first doctor to describe patients with Pantothenate Kinase-Associated Neurodegeneration (PKAN) in Volda in 1830? A case series of four siblings with the same disease written by district medical officer Peter Jensen (1799-1832) in Aalesund in 1830, was published in the Norwegian medical journal Eyr in 1832. The children, who were healthy almost up to school age, developed dystonic involuntary movements and deformities in all extremities, lost their ability to speak and were emaciated before they died at around the age of nine years. Further information about the family and a fifth affected child has been found in the parish records. The clinical picture is consistent with Pantothenate Kinase-Associated Neurodegeneration (PKAN), a rare condition with basal ganglia iron deposition, described in 1922 by the German neuropathologists Julius Hallervorden (1882-1965) and Hugo Spatz (1888-1969). The disease was formerly called Hallervorden-Spatz syndrome, but because of the medical activities undertaken by these two researchers before and during the Second World War, this eponym is no longer recommended.

Dovenskap, uforstand, skjørbuk eller blyforgiftning?

Literary medicine er ei samling av i alt 19 artiklar kor skribentane tek for seg nevrologiske og psykiatriske sjukdomar, slik desse er blitt skildra i skjønnlitteratur frå 1800-talet og framover. Sjukdomspanoramaet inkluderer tilstandar som også i dag er vanlege, som schizofreni, migrene, alkoholisme og epilepsi. Nokre av artiklane omhandlar meir kulturelt og tidsmessig avgrensa tilstandar, som hysteri, der romanen Emma Bovary av Gustave Flaubert (1821 – 1880) er trekt fram som eit døme. Tre artiklar tek for seg litterære legeskikkelsar hos forfattarane Marcel Proust (1871 – 1922), Honoré de Balzac (1799 – 1850) og Anton Tsjekhov (1860 – 1904). Nokre sjukdomar er blitt skildra i litteraturen lenge før diagnosen er blitt etablert og definert innanfor medisinen. Schizofreni er eit døme på ein slik sjukdom. I ein av artiklane tek forfattarane for seg romanen Louis Lambert frå 1833 av den franske forfattaren Honoré de Balzac, der vi finn ei skildring av ein hovudperson som går gjennom alle dei stadier som høyrer med i dei moderne diagnosekriteria for schizofreni. Dette var 69 år før Emil Kraepelin (1856 – 1926) definerte tilstanden dementia praecox, og 76 år før Eugen Bleuler (1857 – 1935) innførte namnet schizofreni på denne sjukdomstilstanden. Forbrytelse og straff av Fjodor Dostojevskij (1821 – 1881) er eit av dei store verka i verdslitteraturen. Å karakterisere hovudpersonen i romanen, Raskolnikov, som psykopat, som ein av skribentane tek til orde for, er etter mitt syn ei svær forenkling. Forbrytelse og straff er ei stor forteljing som tek for seg sentrale menneskelege problemstillingar innan skyld, straff og soning. Å ta handlingane og reaksjonane til Raskolnikov til inntekt for ei psykopatdiagnose tek bort den allmenne relevansen som denne romanen har. Boka er av blanda kvalitet etter mitt syn. Mange av artiklane er for spesielt interesserte, og då særskilt innanfor fagfelta nevrologi og psykiatri. Språkleg er den til dels tung å lese. Korleis sjukdom vert framstilt i skjønnlitteraturen, er likevel interessant både i eit medisinsk, historisk og humanistisk perspektiv. Nokre sjukdomar har eksistert berre i gitte tidsepokar, farga av samtida. Seinare kan sjukdomen ha forsvunne eller gitt seg uttrykk i andre former. Dette minner oss på at diagnosar ikkje er hogd i stein.