Snezana Tomasevic-Todorovic

Motor Ability and Emotions in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients

Objective: The aim is to determine the influence of emotional status on motor response velocity in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Materials and Method: The study included 53 women with rheumatoid arthritis and 27 healthy women. Depression was diagnosed using the Beck Scale for Depression (Beck Depression Inventory-BDI), anxiety using Spielberger’s anxiety test (Spielberger Trait Anxiety Inventory-State and Traite), functional status (Health Assessment Questionnaire, HAQ), and disease activity using the activity index disease (DAS 28). Simple and choice reaction time was determined using a computer program Donders. Results: Mean visuomotor reaction time (RT1, RT2, RT3) were significantly lower in the group of patients with rheumatoid arthritis than in the control group (p<0.001). In the group of anxious-depressive patients was found significant differences in average values of simple and choice reaction time when compared to the pain by the VAS scale (p<0.001), but not in the group of anxious patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Conclusion: The anxious-depressive patients had damaged motor abilities, which are manifested by significantly longer simple and choice reaction time, when compared to the anxious RA patients and healthy people. The anxiousdepressive RA patients had the higher intensity of pain which correlated with longer visuomotor reaction time.

Clinical characteristics of infectious spondylodiscitis.

Spondylodiscitis represents an inflammatory process, localized in the vertebrae body and in the intervertebral discs. The goals of this research were to identify subjective complaints, clinical findings, and laboratory characteristics in patients with spondylodiscitis, as well as to establish the importance of magnetic resonance imaging in diagnosing this disease. The data of 40 patients treated at the Clinic for Infectious diseases of the Clinical Center of Vojvodina from 2003 till 2007 were reviewed. Majority of the patients had low back pain (90%). Fever was present in 37.5% of patients (chi2 = 2.5; p > 0.05). Laboratory parameters of inflammation were higher than normal in most of the patients before the treatment. Diagnosis of spondylodiscitis was made using MRI in 97.5% of the patients. Keeping in mind unspecific subjective complaints and clinical findings in patients with spondylodiscitis, a health professional should always suspect spondylodiscitis when back pain occurs, in order to diagnose and treat this severe disease as early as possible. Magnetic resonance imaging is the most advantageous method in diagnosing spondylodiscitis.

An estimate of functional state in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

INTRODUCTION Rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammatory chronic disease that affects 0.5-1% of the population, many of whom develop disease as working-age adults. MATERIAL AND METHODS The aim of examination was to estimate functional disability in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and relationship between radiological damage, disease duration, disease activity, functional disability. The examination involved 60 patients with rheumatoid arthritis, aged (53.92 +/- 7.06) of both genders (48 female, 12 male). The following variables were assessed at one time point: swollen and tender joint count, visual analogue scale for pain, erythrocite sedimentation rate, health assessment questionnaire (HAQ) score, anatomical stage and functional class according to Stenbrockers criteria. Disease activity was expressed as 28 joint disease activity score (DAS28). Correlations were calculated by Spearmans coefficient of correlation. RESULTS In our study 82% of the patients had II and III anatomical stage and 80% of the patients had II and III functional class according to Steinbrockers criteria. The median HAQ score was 1.25 +/- 0.70, and the median DAS28 was 5.74 +/- 0.98. Poor functional status was observed in 37 (61.66%) of the patients with an HAQ score of = 2. Functional disability in patients with rheumatoid arthritis was most strongly related to the presence of pain (rs=0.338, p<0.01) and to a lesser extent to anatomical and functional stage, disease duration, disease activity. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION The results of the study show that functional disability significantly correlated with subjective pain score (rs=0.338, p<0.01). We observed strong correlation between functional disability presented by HAQ score and pain but no significant correlation with other common clinical variables used for rheumatoid arthritis patients evaluation such as disease duration, disease activity, radiological damage.

Psychometric validation of the Serbian version of the Fear Avoidance Component Scale (FACS)

Objective The Fear Avoidance Components Scale (FACS) is a new patient-reported outcome (PRO) questionnaire designed to comprehensively evaluate fear avoidance (FA) beliefs and attitudes in persons with painful medical conditions. The original English version has demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties, including concurrent and predictive validity. Two factors have been identified: 1. general fear avoidance; and 2. types of activities that are avoided. Methods The FACS was first translated into Serbian, and then psychometrically validated. A cohort of 322 chronic musculoskeletal pain subjects completed the FACS-Serb and additional FA-related patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures. Their FACS-Serb scores were then compared to a cohort of 68 acute pain subjects. Results Test-retest reliability (ICC2,1 = 0.928) and internal consistency for both Factors (Cronbach α 0.904 and 0,880 respectively) were very good. An acceptable fit was found with a confirmatory factor analysis of the 2-factor model found with the original English version of the FACS. Strong associations were found among FACS-Serb scores and other PRO measures of pain catastrophizing, depressive/anxiety symptoms, perceived disability, and pain intensity (p<0.001 for all analyses). FACS-Serb total scores, separate Factor scores, and subjective pain ratings were significantly higher in the chronic vs. acute pain cohorts (p<0.001 for all analyses). Conclusions The FACS-Serb demonstrated strong psychometric properties, including strong reliability and internal consistency, criterion validity (through associations with other FA-related PRO measures), and discriminant validity (through comparisons with a separate acute pain cohort). The FACS-Serb appears to be a potentially useful pain-related assessment tool.

Osteoporosis in patients with stroke: A cross-sectional study

Annals of Indian Academy of Neurology, April-June 2016, Vol 19, Issue 2 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms. How to cite this article: Sheetal SK, Mathew R, Peethambaran B. Hashimoto’s encephalopathy as a treatable cause of corticobasal disease. Ann Indian Acad Neurol 2016;19:285-6. Received: 21-08-15, Revised: 22-09-15, Accepted: 15-10-15 Access this article online