Prognostic significance of electrophysiological investigations in stroke patients: somatosensory and motor evoked potentials and sympathetic skin response.

A prospective 3-month follow-up examination was carried out in 12 patients with supratentorial stroke. Motor evoked potentials (MEP), somatosensory evoked potentials (SEP) and sympathetic skin responses (SSR) were performed 1-7 days, 30 days and 3 months after stroke. The functional outcome measured by a daily activity index (Barthel index) was assessed 3 months after the stroke. There was a significant correlation between SEP and MEP results obtained for the first week and recovery of sensation and motility 3 months later. When initially normal, motor potentials evoked by transcranial magnetic stimulation had a significant predictive value for long-term functional outcome, whereas SEP and SSR did not. SSR present at the initial stage was correlated with the state of consciousness.

[Right hemispheric lesion and psychiatric picture. A clinical case report]. / Lésion de l'hémisphère droit et tableau psychiatrique. A propos d'un cas clinique.

Here's a suggestive clinical picture about delirious fit at a fifty-nine year old man showing a vascular injury of his right hemisphere. The injuries of his minor hemisphere generate misleading psychiatric clinical pictures because the neurological signs can be unobstrusive and even missing. We suggest that our observation as a "clinical trap" (clinical pseudopsychiatric picture) and especially to emphasize the complementary paraclinical (scanning) in the diagnostic approach.