ABSTRACT
Clinicians often encounter patients whose neurologic attacks appear to cluster. In a daily diary study, the authors explored whether clustering is a true phenomenon in epilepsy and can be identified in the clinical setting. Nearly half the subjects experienced at least one episode of three or more seizures in 24 hours; 20% also met a statistical clustering criterion. Utilizing the clinical definition of clustering should identify all seizure clusterers, and false positives can be determined with diary data.
Subject(s)
Epilepsy/diagnosis , Adult , Chronic Disease , Cohort Studies , Diagnosis, Differential , Epilepsy/physiopathology , False Positive Reactions , Female , Humans , Male , Medical Records , Neurologic Examination , Recurrence , Space-Time Clustering , Statistical Distributions , Time FactorsABSTRACT
There is some evidence of retroviral infection in ALS. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of indinavir in ALS was performed to assess safety and efficacy trends. Nephrolithiasis and gastrointestinal side effects were frequent with indinavir treatment. Group differences in the rate of decline were not significant between the groups for the ALS Functional Rating Scale (p = 0.36) or for the secondary variables. The toxicity and negative efficacy trends discourage further indinavir trials in ALS.
