Dream recall frequency and psychosomatics.

The ability to remember dreams can depend on a wide range of factors such as personality, creativity, mental state, cognitive functions as well as somatic symptoms. In the course of their studies, medical researchers have demonstrated that about 80% patients, woken up at their Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep phase, can remember their own dreams, whereas, in clinical practice, young adults can remember their dreams on their awakenings only once or twice a week. Let us now come to the point: in this study we suggest some hypotheses that could explain the reason why patients suffering from psychosomatic disorders seem to remember dreams much less frequently than healthy individuals.

Corneal power after DSAEK using microkeratome-prepared tissues.

PURPOSE: To investigate changes of corneal power after descemet stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK). METHODS: Anterior, posterior, and true-net (anterior + posterior) power of post-DSAEK and contralateral transparent corneas were measured, using the Pentacam rotating Scheimpflug camera (Oculus Wetzlar, Germany), 6 months after surgery in 23 consecutive patients who had undergone unilateral DSAEK at the same medical center. Moreover, in each cornea, Pentacam pachimetry was measured at the vertex and at 3 mm from the vertex, to calculate corneal thickness increase (CTI). RESULTS: In post-DSAEK corneas, the anterior power on average decreased by -0.24 ± 0.61 diopters (D), the negative posterior power increased by -0.96 ± 0.42 D, and the true-net power decreased by -1.19 ± 0.74 D (range: +0.17 to -2.23 D). Differences vs. contralateral transparent corneas did not reach statistical significance for anterior (p = 0.09) but were significant (p < 0.001) for posterior and true-net corneal power. CTI at 3 mm from the vertex was statistically larger (p < 0.0001) in post-DSAEK corneas (mean values 0.27 ± 0.07 vs. 0.12 ± 0.05); CTI values showed a statistically significant (p < 0.05) correlation with negative posterior corneal power values in post-DSAEK (r = -0.55) and in contralateral corneas (r = -0.67). CONCLUSIONS: In comparison with contralateral corneas, post-DSAEK corneas show a moderate reduction of the true-net corneal power measured by Pentacam. Knowledge of true-net corneal power changes might be useful in adjusting K values and calculating intraocular lens power, in eyes scheduled for DSAEK combined with intraocular lens implantation/exchange.