Acute mountain sickness (AMS) occurs commonly in hikers who are rapidly exposed to high altitude environments. Despite the numerous reports of AMS, few studies have reported pallidal lesions associated with altitude sickness. A previously healthy 49-yr-old Korean patient, after ascent to 4,700 m, suffered symptoms consistent with AMS. After returning home, the patient showed changes in personality characterized by abulia, indifference, and indecisiveness. T2 weighted brain magnetic resonance imaging showed high signal lesions involving bilateral globus pallidus. Our case suggests that globus pallidus injury should be included in the differential diagnosis of patients with personality or cognitive change after recovery from AMS.
Altitude ; Altitude Sickness/*complications ; Behavior ; Brain/pathology ; Brain Damage, Chronic/*etiology/pathology ; Environment ; Globus Pallidus/*pathology ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Mountaineering

BACKGROUND: It is not uncommon to misdiagnose frontotemporal dementia (FTD) because it presents with alterations in personality and behavior rather than cognitive decline. Since compulsive behavior is one of the common early manifestations of FTD, analysis of compulsive behaviors, together with presenting symptoms, would help diagnose FTD in its early stage. METHODS: Subjects consisted of 25 patients (5 men and 20 women with mean age of 56 +/-9 years) who met the FTD criteria proposed by the Lund and Manchester group. We analyzed their presenting symptoms and compulsive behaviors retrospectively. RESULTS: The presenting symptoms were variable, including inappropriate judgement, loss of spontaneity, memory disturbance, personality change, apathy, repetitive movements, hypersexuality, and parsimony. Twenty-two out of the 25 patients (88%) showed compulsive behaviors. They included reading signboards, stereotypy of speech, ordering, hoarding, washing, checking, counting, singing, and wandering a fixed route. CONCLUSIONS: Compulsive behaviors are commonly associated with FTD and thereby understanding of these symptoms together with presenting symptoms may help diagnose FTD early and minimize the misdiagnosis of FTD for Alzheimer's disease or other psychiatric illnesses.
Alzheimer Disease ; Apathy ; Compulsive Behavior* ; Diagnostic Errors ; Female ; Frontotemporal Dementia* ; Humans ; Male ; Memory ; Obsessive Hoarding ; Retrospective Studies ; Singing

No abstract available.
Alzheimer Disease* ; Dementia*

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and their caregivers are concerned with the likelihood and time course of progression to dementia. This study was performed to identify the clinical predictors of the MCI progression in a Korean registry, and investigated the effects of medications without evidence, frequently prescribed in clinical practice. METHODS: Using a Korean cohort that included older adults with MCI who completed at least one follow-up visit, clinical characteristics and total medical expenses including prescribed medications were compared between two groups: progressed to dementia or not. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was conducted. RESULTS: During the mean 1.42±0.72 years, 215 (27.63%) of 778 participants progressed to dementia. The best predictors were age [hazard ratio (HR), 1.036; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.006–1.067; p=0.018], apolipoprotein ε4 allele (HR, 2.247; 95% CI, 1.512–3.337; p<0.001), Clinical Dementia Rating scale-sum of boxes scores (HR, 1.367; 95% CI, 1.143–1.636; p=0.001), Instrumental Activities of Daily Living scores (HR, 1.035; 95% CI, 1.003–1.067; p=0.029), and lower Mini-Mental State Examination scores (HR, 0.892; 95% CI, 0.839–0.949; p<0.001). Total medical expenses were not different. CONCLUSIONS: Our data are in accordance with previous reports about clinical predictors for the progression from MCI to dementia. Total medical expenses were not different between groups with and without progression.
Activities of Daily Living ; Adult ; Alleles ; Apolipoproteins ; Caregivers ; Cholinesterase Inhibitors ; Cohort Studies* ; Dementia ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Mild Cognitive Impairment*

BACKGROUND: There are few studies about driving and dementia in Korea. The purpose of this study is to investigate the real condition of automobile driving in patients with dementia and the characteristics of those who continue to drive after diagnosis of dementia. METHODS: A total of 4,377 patients including 3,792 with Alzheimer's disease and 585 with vascular dementia were recruited from multiple nationwide hospitals. Clinical evaluations and neuropsychological tests were done in them according to the protocol of the Clinical Research Center for Dementia of South Korea study. Caregivers replied which patients drove an automobile, gave up driving, or has never driven. The same evaluations of them were followed after one year. RESULTS: There were 272 (6.2%) drivers, 321 (7.3%) ex-drivers, and 3,784 (86.5%) non-drivers with dementia. Drivers with dementia were younger and had higher Korean Mini-Mental State Examination (K-MMSE) (21.5+/-4.3 vs 19.8+/-5.1 vs 17.4+/-5.2, p<0.001) and lower Clinical Dementia Rating scale-Sum of Boxes (CDR-SB) scores (4.08+/-2.15 vs 5.80+/-3.41 vs 5.83+/-3.39, p<0.001) compared with ex-drivers and non-drivers with dementia. The drivers and ex-drivers with dementia had higher educational level and a higher proportion of male compared with non-drivers with dementia (77.6% vs 80.1% vs 23.3%, p<0.001). About 54.6% of the drivers with dementia continued to drive at one year after diagnosis of dementia. They had higher K-MMSE (23.2+/-3.6 vs 20.8+/-4.5, p=0.003) and lower CDR-SB scores (3.30+/-1.47 vs 4.40+/-1.85, p=0.001) at baseline compared with those who quitted driving after baseline. CONCLUSIONS: Male patients who were relatively young and had high educational level and mild dementia had a tendency to drive an automobile at that time of diagnosis of dementia. About half of them continued to drive after diagnosis of dementia.
Alzheimer Disease ; Automobile Driving ; Automobiles ; Caregivers ; Dementia* ; Dementia, Vascular ; Diagnosis ; Humans ; Korea ; Male ; Neuropsychological Tests

Purpose: Research on the relationship between diet and dementia among Koreans are lacking. This study investigated the association between dietary habits and dementia progression over 3 years in patients with Alzheimer’s disease dementia (ADD). Materials and Methods: This study included 705 patients with mild-to-moderate ADD. Dietary habits were assessed using the Mini Dietary Assessment Index, comprising 10 questions. Outcome measures included the Clinical Dementia Rating scale-Sum of Boxes (CDR-SB), Seoul-Instrumental Activities of Daily Living, Caregiver-Administered Neuropsychiatric Inventory (CGA-NPI), and neuropsychological test battery (NTB) z-scores, which were evaluated annually over 3 years. Results: In Q10 (eat all food evenly without being picky), the 3-year mean differences in CDR-SB (increases in scores represent worsening) compared to the “rarely” group were -1.86 [95% confidence interval (CI)=-3.64 – -0.09, p=0.039] for the “usually” group and -2.23 (95% CI=-4.40 – -0.06, p=0.044) for the “always” group. In Q7 (add salt or soy sauce to food when eating), the 3-year mean differences in CDR-SB compared to the “always” group were -2.47 (95% CI=-4.70 – -0.24, p=0.030) for the “usually” group and -3.16 (95% CI=-5.36 – -0.96, p=0.005) for the “rarely” group. The “rarely” and “usually” groups in Q7 showed significantly less decline in NTB z-score and CGA-NPI compared to the “always” group. Conclusion Eating a balanced diet and reducing salt intake were associated with a slower decline in dementia severity, cognition, and behavioral alterations in patients with ADD.

Idiopathic hypertrophic pachymeningitis is a clinical disorder caused by a localized or diffuse thickening of the dura mater, with an associated chronic inflammation. This can be diagnosed when there is no evidence of other etiologies such as trauma, infection, tumors, and Wegener's disease. Clinical manifestations are chronic headache with or without neurological manifestations such as cranial nerve palsies, cerebellar ataxia, neuro-ophthalmologic complications, and rarely clinical seizures. We described a patient with simple partial seizures with focal sensory and motor symptoms in the right hand as an initial and the only clinical manifestation, accompanied by a tumor-like lesion in the left parietal convexity on brain MRI. The patient underwent a lesionectomy, and the seizures have been well controlled so far without immunosuppressant treatment.
Brain ; Cerebellar Ataxia ; Cranial Nerve Diseases ; Dura Mater ; Epilepsies, Partial ; Hand ; Headache Disorders ; Humans ; Inflammation ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Meningitis* ; Neurologic Manifestations ; Rabeprazole ; Seizures*

Fetus in fetu is a poorly understood and rare congenital malfomation. This is a rare form of monozygotic twin that asymmetric twin becomes internalized in the other twin thus acting endoparasitically. Fetus in fetu can be distinguised from teratoma, because of vertebral column, skeletal axis, and well-differentiated internal organs. We present the findings in the two cases of fetus in fetu that were diagnosed with prenatal ultrasonography. After birth, we removed fetus-like structures and confirmed by pathologic examination. Fetus-like structures were consisted of vertebral column, extremities, and other well-developed internal organs.
Axis, Cervical Vertebra ; Extremities ; Fetus* ; Humans ; Parturition ; Spine ; Teratoma ; Twins, Monozygotic ; Ultrasonography, Prenatal*

The Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) is a standardized, validated, and reliable tool to assess neuropsychiatric derangements in dementia patients. The aim of this study is to develop the Korean version of the NPI (K-NPI) and to test its reliability and usefulness in dementia patients. The subjects were 49 normal controls and 92 patients with Alzheimer's disease (43), vascular dementia (32), frontotemporal lobar degeneration (11), and other causes (6). Their caregivers familiar with the subjects' everyday behavior were interviewed with the K-NPI. In a subgroup (29/141) of the caregivers, the K-NPI was repeated for test-retest reliability, average of 23.1 days after the initial test. Prevalence rates of 12 behavioral domains in dementia patients were comparable to those of the original NPI; apathy was the most common and hallucination was the least common behavior. Total K-NPI scores correlated positively with dementia severity assessed with the Korean Mini-Mental State Examination. Test-retest reliabilities of frequencies and severities of all subscales were significantly high. Depression, anxiety, apathy, irritability, night-time behavior, and eating change were identified at very low rates in normal controls and were significantly less than those in dementia patients (p<0.001). The K-NPI, whose reliability and competency are comparable to those of the original version, may be a reliable and useful tool for measuring neuropsychiatric disturbances in Korean dementia patients.
Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Behavior ; Dementia/psychology* ; Female ; Human ; Korea ; Male ; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales* ; Reproducibility of Results

BACKGROUND: The study of ocular search pattern in normal subjects and patients with hemispatial neglect may help understand spatial cognition. However, only a few studies are available that investigated ocular search pattern even in normal controls. The present study was to investigate ocular search pattern of normal subjects during line bisection task. METHODS: Nine normal subjects (6 men and 3 women with mean age of 21.8+/-4.2 years) were requested to fix their eyes on the midpoint of the line that was presented on the monitor. Lines for bisection were varied according to the location (center, right-sided or left-sided) and length (short or long) and each subject performed 6 trials (one trial/condition). Horizontal eye movements were recorded using an infrared video-oculography and were analyzed in terms of the range and the direction of eye movements. RESULTS: Average range of fixation during line bisection was 20.1% of entire length that corresponded middle portion of the line. There was no directional preference in searching the line during line bisection task. CONCLUSIONS: We expected that normal subjects overtly look at both ends of the line before they bisect the line. On the contrary, they seem to use a strategy such that they directly go to the middle part of the line and then make fine adjustment while looking at both ends of line covertly. (J Korean Neurol Assoc 19(2):96~101, 2001)
Cognition ; Eye Movements ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Perceptual Disorders