The epidemiology and management of stroke in French Guiana.

BACKGROUND: French Guiana has the highest incidence of ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke of all French territories. However, there is no further information on the epidemiology and management of stroke in French Guiana. Our goal was to describe the characteristics of patients in French Guiana in order to generate hypotheses regarding the determinants explaining the magnitude of this public health problem. METHODS: We used the data of the French multicentre INDIA prospective cohort study which included consecutive patients aged > 18 years with a first-ever stroke from June 2011 to October 2014. For the present study, only patients with ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke admitted in one of the 3 participating hospitals were analyzed. RESULTS: Among the 298 patients (mean age 62.2 ± 14.5 years, 63.7% man) included in French Guiana, 52% were born abroad. Most strokes were ischemic strokes (79%), 14% of which were thrombolyzed. Hypertension (70.2%), history of smoking (22%) and diabetes (25%) were the most common risk factors and 28.4% of patients had known but untreated hypertension. Overall 89 (38%) patients with ischemic stroke were admitted less than 4.5 h after the first symptoms. In-hospital mortality was greater for intracerebral hemorrhage (18.7%) than for ischemic stroke (4.2%). Overall, 84.5% had health insurance coverage and among these, 41.9% had CMU, the universal health insurance for the poor. CONCLUSIONS: The present study is the first epidemiologic description of stroke in French Guiana. The comparisons of these results show that stroke patients in French Guiana are epidemiologically atypical because they are younger, and more likely to be males than patients in mainland France. Stroke risk factors and delay between stroke and hospital admission were comparable with what is observed in France, suggesting that efforts should focus on primary care and social inequalities of health to alleviate the main determinants of stroke in French Guiana.

Delusional experience awareness gap between patients and treating doctors - Self-reported EPDS questionnaire.

OBJECTIVES: Although early and rapid recognition of a psychotic trend in patients with epilepsy certainly pay dividends, there is no handy assessment instrument for screening because of multiple intrinsic difficulties such as lack of a standard screener as well as a reliability gap for screeners between help-seeking and general populations. On the other hand, the predominance of positive symptoms at the initial stage of psychosis is a promising aspect of this specific group. The following specific questions were examined. Is there a measurable difference between the assessment of the treating doctor and the real feelings of the patient? How well does the attained score correspond to the clinical diagnosis? METHODS: The self-reported Emotions with Persecutory Delusions Scale (EPDS) questionnaire, previously validated in a general population, was used as the assessment tool for psychotic trend in 79 outpatients with epilepsy. Independent from scoring by the patients, the treating doctors also expressed their impressions about the same patients using the same scoring tool. RESULTS: Stepwise multiple regression analysis of the EPDS scores of both doctors and patients revealed that a clinical diagnosis of psychosis was the only independent variable significantly related to EPDS score. Also, there was a significant difference between the EPDS scores of the patients and those of the doctors, in favor of the former. SIGNIFICANCE: Clinical diagnosis of psychosis proved to be the most powerful determinant of EPDS score independent from other clinical factors. The awareness gap between doctors and patients based on EPDS score revealed that treating doctors often clearly underestimate the psychotic trend of their patients. Our findings suggest that such simple tests as EPDS, with a narrow focus on attenuated delusional symptoms, may help screen for an early psychotic episode in patients with epilepsy that may otherwise not be diagnosed by their physicians.

Long-standing prion dementia manifesting as posterior cortical atrophy.

Prion diseases commonly manifest with the phenotype of subacute myoclonic encephalopathy. However, genetic forms of prion disease may have prolonged evolution mimicking neurodegenerative disease. We present the clinical and neuropathological features of a family with an early and long-standing dementia manifesting with posterior cortical atrophy and related to a 120 bp insertional mutation of the prion protein gene. Two cases exhibited mixed prion and Aß pathology. The differential diagnosis with Alzheimer disease is discussed.