Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0002736 (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis)
 19,048 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Patients presenting with left-sided FTLD syndromes sometimes develop a new preoccupation with art, greater attention to visual stimuli, and increased visual creativity. We describe the case of a 53-year-old, right-handed man with a history of bipolar disorder who presented with language and behavior impairments characteristic of FTLD, then developed motor symptoms consistent with a second diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Though the patient had never created visual art before, he developed a compulsion for painting beginning at the earliest stages of his disease, and continued producing art daily until he could no longer lift a paintbrush because of his motor deficits. Upon autopsy, he was found to have ubiquitin and TDP43-positive inclusions with MND pathology. This case study details the patient's longitudinal neuropsychological, emotional, behavioral, and motor symptoms, along with structural imaging, neurologic, and neuropathologic findings. Multiple examples of the patient's art are depicted throughout all stages of his illness, and the possible cognitive, behavioral, and neurologic correlates of his new-onset visual artistry are discussed.
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PMID:A case study of an emerging visual artist with frontotemporal lobar degeneration and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. 1927 73

Pathological gambling (PG) has been identified in Parkinson's disease (PD), but such gambling behaviors may also occur in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We sought to estimate the prevalence of PG amongst members of a web-based community, PatientsLikeMe.com. A survey was constructed, consisting of demographic information, the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS), the K-6 measure of distress, and items related to motivation for gambling. Data were obtained from 236 ALS patients and 208 PD patients. Of the PD patients, 13% were classified as problem gamblers compared with 3% of ALS patients (chi(2) = 14.005, P <or= 0.001). PD patients reported thoughts about gambling to be more distressing, harder to resist and more outside their control than ALS patients. Thus, the higher prevalence of compulsive behavior in PD may relate to damaged reward pathways or medication rather than to the effects of living with a chronic progressive neurological disorder per se.
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PMID:Pathological gambling amongst Parkinson's disease and ALS patients in an online community (PatientsLikeMe.com). 1935 22