Pharmacologic treatment of tremor.

Tremor is a common neurologic symptom that can also be incapacitating to the patient, so effective therapy is needed. The causes of tremor are heterogeneous. Essential tremor (ET) and the tremor associated with Parkinson's disease (PD) are the most common encountered in clinical practice. Beta-adrenergic blockers and primidone remain the mainstay of treatment for ET, whereas carbidopa/levodopa and anticholinergics are most beneficial in PD. However, the efficacy of various other medications has been studied in ET and PD, and also in patients with tremor resulting from other conditions, with varying results.

Quality of life and Parkinson's disease: the CR FIRST Study.

Quality of life is an important issue in the treatment of Parkinson's disease. Both general and disease specific quality of life scales are now being used in interventional trials. In the Sinemet CR First trial, the long-acting preparation was found to be superior to the immediate release preparation in several measures of the Nottingham Health Profile, a generic quality of life scale. In particular social isolation and emotional reactivity was better with Sinemet CR. The long acting drug was also superior for all five years of the study, for activities of daily living subscale of the UPDRS. It is concluded the Sinemet CR may have advantages over the immediate release preparation on Quality of life issues in PD.

Establishment of lens epithelial cell lines from Emory and cataract resistant mice and their response to hydrogen peroxide.

We determined the conditions required for the establishment of lens epithelial cell lines from individual Emory and age matched cataract-resistant (CR) mice, and investigated the response of these cells to hydrogen peroxide. The technique described here permits the establishment of mouse lens epithelial cell lines from individual animals and provides an opportunity to study changes in epithelial function that precede and accompany cataract formation and aging. Capsules with lens epithelial cells were isolated from 1, 6 month, and 1.5-2 year old Emory and CR mice and cultured in minimal essential medium (MEM) containing 4% heat inactivated fetal bovine serum and 4% heat inactivated rabbit serum. Seeding efficiency at 3 hours was approximately 83% for all lines, doubling time was 22-24 hours, and the shape of the growth curves was comparable for Emory and CR mice from each age group. A three hour exposure of Emory and CR mouse lens epithelial cells from older animals to a constant level of 0.02 mM hydrogen peroxide or to an initial concentration of 0.01, 0.03, or 0.05 mM hydrogen peroxide resulted in a delay in growth. The delay in cell proliferation was decidedly more pronounced in lens epithelial cells from Emory mice. Lens epithelial cells from cataractous mice appear to be more sensitive to oxidative insult than their CR counterparts.

Serious or fatal driver injury rate versus car mass in head-on crashes between cars of similar mass.

This work was performed to determine relations between car mass and driver injuries (serious or fatal) when cars of similar mass crash into each other head-on. This type of crash is examined because it is considered similar in some respects to a barrier crash. Data from the United States Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS) are used to examine driver fatality likelihood as a function of car mass when cars of similar mass crash into each other. Pedestrian fatalities involving cars of the same mass are used to estimate exposure. Two additional sources of data (State data from North Carolina and New York) are used to generate information on the number of drivers seriously injured or killed per police reported crash when cars of similar mass crash into each other. The present study finds that the likelihood of driver injury (fatal or serious) when cars of similar mass crash into each other increases with decreasing car mass, both for head-on crashes and for crashes in all directions. The study does not address possible mechanisms that might lead to such relations. All the data analyzed reveal a fairly consistent picture--a driver in a 900 kg car crashing head-on into another 900 kg car is about 2.0 times as likely to be seriously injured or killed as is a driver of a 1800 kg car crashing head-on into another 1800 kg car.