Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0030193 (pain)
 261,466 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A case of acute encephalopathy with selective bilateral symmetrical striatal lesions is reported. The patient was a previously healthy 4-year-old boy who became obtunded after a febrile illness and fell into a state of delirium with severe pain in the feet. He showed abnormal postures: hyperextension of the neck and upper limbs and extreme flexion of both lower limbs, and abnormal involuntary movements of the limbs: tremor, athetotic movement and right hemiballismus. Analysis of serum antibody titres suggested recent primary infection of herpes simplex type 1 (HSV-1). Cranial T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) demonstrated areas of high-signal intensity involving the whole basal ganglia bilaterally. He showed rapid clinical improvement after the initiation of corticosteroid therapy; complete clinical recovery was noted 3 months after the onset. Serial MRI studies demonstrated a rapid reduction of the lesions, resulting in only slight T2-hyperintense areas in both caudate nuclei. The pathogenesis of the disorder remains unknown, though an autoimmune mechanism has been speculated. The clinical and laboratory findings in this case suggested a possible role of HSV-1 in the pathomechanism of the disorder and a beneficial effect of early corticosteroid therapy.
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PMID:Acute encephalopathy with bilateral striatal necrosis: favourable response to corticosteroid therapy. 1072 92

Neuroleptics are frequently used in patients with advanced cancer. Most relevant and practical aspects of their use in supportive cancer care are reviewed, to assist the clinical oncologist and palliative care specialist when prescribing these drugs. This article reviews pharmacological properties, indications, such as delirium, nausea and vomiting, pain, anxiety and other symptoms, adverse effects, and drug interactions of neuroleptics and compares the profiles of different compounds. Special emphasis is put on the role of neuroleptics in the management of delirium.
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PMID:Psychopharmacology in supportive care of cancer: a review for the clinician: II. Neuroleptics. 1073 54

Management of pain is crucial to the success of any program of care and support for dying patients and their families. Pain can be controlled in more than 90% of older adults. Components of an effective program include comprehensive, repeated pain assessment; detection and treatment of complicating medical and psychological disorders (e.g., delirium); spiritual concerns; and the judicious use of nonpharmacologic and pharmacologic therapies, radiation, and radiopharmaceuticals. Strategies that enable clinicians to prevent and treat the expected complications of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory and opioid therapies are reviewed. Strategies to change opioid agents or routes to minimize opioid-induced side effects and to provide effective pain relief as death nears are presented.
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PMID:Advances in pain management for older adult patients. 1078 29

Delirium is highly prevalent in terminally ill patients, especially in the last weeks of life, when some cognitive impairment develops in as many as 85% of patients. Delirium is associated with increased morbidity in terminally ill patients and can interfere with pain and symptom control. The cause of delirium is usually multifactorial and often cannot be found or reversed in dying patients. Nonpharmacologic and pharmacologic interventions are effective in controlling the symptoms of delirium in terminally ill patients. Haloperidol and other newer neuroleptics are safe and effective in eliminating delirium for some patients. In approximately one third of patients, delirium can be managed successfully only by providing sedation.
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PMID:Delirium in the terminally ill. 1078 33

Because of their variety of uses, corticosteroids are frequently prescribed in advanced cancer patients. Two patients who developed neuropsychiatric complications on corticosteroids and their subsequent management are described. The first patient, who had a known history of steroid-induced psychotic depression, required corticosteroids to treat recurrent brain edema from a malignant meningioma. The patient was managed by using low-dose corticosteroids and concomitant haloperidol. The second patient was prescribed corticosteroids for a constellation of symptoms, including pain and nausea from a possible bowel obstruction, and developed a severe delirium that required discontinuation of the corticosteroids. The difficulties of diagnosing steroid-related cognitive and mood changes in advanced cancer patients who often have multisystem disease are discussed, as well as strategies for minimizing the effects of corticosteroids' neuropsychological complications.
J Pain Symptom Manage 2000 Apr
PMID:Difficulties in diagnosing neuropsychiatric complications of corticosteroids in advanced cancer patients: two case reports. 1079 97

The most frequent consequence of chronic alcohol intake is a toxic polyneuropathy. It results from inadequate nutrition, mainly deficiency of thiamine and other B vitamins. Additionally there is a direct neurotoxic effect of ethanol. Signs and symptoms are 1. distal sensory disturbances with pain, paresthesia, and numbness in a glove and stockings-pattern, 2. weakness and atrophy of distal muscles, pronounced in the lower limbs, 3. loss of tendon jerks, 4. affection of autonomic fibers. Therapy consists in absolute alcohol abstinence, high-caloric nutrition, parenteral thiamine and other vitamins. Against paresthesia and pain, carbamazepine, salicylates, amitryptiline are effective. Parenteral tioctacid may be tried. The prognosis of alcoholic polyneuropathy is favorable, with alcohol abstinence, within several months up to a few years. In chronic alcoholic patients peripheral nerves frequently are injured by compression during alcohol intoxication. Peroneal nerve lesions result from compression in the region of the neck of the fibula during a prolonged lying position, the radial nerve is injured during sitting with the upper arm placed on the backrest of a bench. Usually pressure palsies resolve spontaneously. Rhabdomyolysis is a rare but life-threatening complication of alcoholic delirium. Symptoms are severe muscle pain, swelling of extremities, pigmenturia. The major complications of rhabdomyolysis are renal and respiratory failure, and cardiac arrhythmias due to electrolyte imbalance. Intensive care is needed with control of hyperkalemia, hydration, alkalinization of urine, hemodialysis if indicated.
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PMID:[Alcohol and the peripheral nervous system]. 1080 76

The majority of vascular patients are elderly and present a unique set of problems after an operation. Age plays a major role in their recovery, but the greatest challenge is their preexisting medical problems. The changes that occur with aging in the following body systems will be discussed: cardiac, pulmonary, renal, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, and central nervous system. Special concerns related to pain management, risk of delirium, and wound healing present continuing nursing challenges that require close observation after surgery.
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PMID:Effects of vascular surgery on the elderly vascular patient. 1081 86

Sedation is a clinically important therapeutic intervention in the imminently dying patient. As the patient with an advanced, irreversible illness nears the end of life, symptoms accumulate that are progressively more difficult to manage and that may become refractory to standard medical interventions. The most common of these intractable symptoms are pain, agitated delirium, dyspnea, and existential or psychological distress. Various therapeutic options available for relieving these symptoms include physician-assisted suicide, euthanasia, acceptance of unrelieved suffering, and terminal sedation. Some commentators have voiced concerns that sedating the imminently dying patient inevitably hastens death, and that this practice, in fact, is a surrogate form of physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia. Ethical arguments invoked to support the use of terminal sedation include the principle of double effect, which draws a moral distinction between the intention of an act (in this case, to relieve suffering) and its foreseen but unintended consequence (premature death). This author views sedation as a necessary, although risk-laden, procedure that, if practiced by trained, dedicated clinicians, maintains the physician's twin obligations to benefit patients and to "do no harm."
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PMID:Sedation in the imminently dying patient. 1082 17

The use of sedation and the management of delirium and other difficult symptoms in terminally ill patients in Edmonton has been reported previously. The focus of this study was to assess the prevalence in the Edmonton region of difficult symptoms requiring sedation at the end of life. Data were collected for 50 consecutive patients at each of (a) the tertiary palliative care unit, (b) the consulting palliative care program at the Royal Alexandra Hospital (acute care), and (c) three hospice inpatient units in the city. Patients on the tertiary palliative care unit were significantly younger. Assessments confirmed the more problematic physical and psychosocial issues of patients in the tertiary palliative care unit. These patients had more difficult pain syndromes and required significantly higher doses of daily opioids. Approximately 80% of patients in all three settings developed delirium prior to death. Pharmacological management of this problem was needed by 40% in the acute care setting, and by 80% in the tertiary palliative care unit. The patients sedated varied from 4% in the hospice setting to 10% in the tertiary palliative care unit. Of the 150 patients, nine were sedated for delirium, one for dyspnea. The prevalence of delirium and other symptoms requiring sedation in our area is relatively low compared to others reported in the literature. Demographic variability between the three Edmonton settings highlights the need for caution in comparing results of different palliative care groups. It is possible that some variability in the use of sedation internationally is due to cultural differences. The infrequent deliberate use of sedation in Edmonton suggests that improved management has resulted in fewer distressing symptoms at the end of life. This is of benefit to patients and to family members who are with them during this time.
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PMID:Sedation for delirium and other symptoms in terminally ill patients in Edmonton. 1088 26

The occurrence of undesirable side effects due to opioids (delirium, confusion, myoclonus, nausea, emesis) is one of the major complications in the management of pain, especially in chronic cancer pain states. Methadone, as an alternative to morphine, has been proposed in the control of opioid-induced toxicity. Methadone is a synthetic opioid, with mu and delta receptor activity, associated with the capacity to inhibit N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors. Questions have arisen concerning its equianalgesic ratio since its rediscovery over the past few years and are certainly related to its receptor interactions. Aspects of its pharmacology, indications, and switching modalities are discussed here. Opioid rotation is a new tool in the management of cancer pain, deserving more attention.
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PMID:Opioid switch to oral methadone in cancer pain. 1088 15


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