Seasonal affective disorder in a tropical country: a case report.

Seasonality and affective disorders in the Southern Hemisphere were investigated in populations living in latitudes (40 degrees S) equivalent to those of the studies conducted in the Northern Hemisphere. The authors describe a patient with bipolar II affective disorder who was living in a low-latitude area (São Paulo, latitude: 23 degrees 39' S). The patient experienced five episodes of affective disorder that began in the summer and were characterized by symptoms typical of an autumn-winter depression. During the last two depressive episodes, the symptoms remitted after a 4-week course of evening light therapy. The case calls attention to the possibility that seasonality may influence the natural history of affective disorders even in lower latitude regions.

An evaluation of the Cavitron Autorefractor 7 with contact lenses and non contact lens wearing patients.

The Autorefractor 7 is a microcomputor assisted electro-mechanical optical system recently introduced to the professions for the subjective measurement of refractive error, phorias, and accommodative capacity. In this study of 450 eyes, 150 were wearing hard contact lenses, 150 wearing soft lenses, and 150 habitually wore a spectacle correction. Comparisons involved only the subjective refractive feature of the instrument and indicated no predictable difference in the three groups. Comparison of the Autorefractor 7 and clinical subjective refraction with the phoropter, however, showed that the instrument is reliable in the majority of cases but has a tendency to overcorrect myopia and astigmatism.