Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0917801 (insomnia)
 10,606 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Prolonged latency in the appearance of REM sleep as a marker of depression has been demonstrated in patients with the sickle-cell disease. To detect the possible existence of depressive disturbances in patients with sickle-cell disease, the Hamilton rating scale for depression (17 items) was used in 30 patients with homozygote sickle-cell disease and 31 carriers of the sickle-cell trait, treated or not with vasodilator drugs. None of the 61 subjects studied presented a score of 18 or more on the Hamilton rating scale, this being the threshold value for confirming the existence of moderate depression. However, analysis of variance showed an increase in mental dullness, agitation and somatization disorder. Dullness was related to the extent of anemia and the number of sickle-cell crises per year. Treatment had an effect on agitation in patients, with pentoxyfylline having a soothing effect unlike cinepazide maleate. Women complained of insomnia in the middle of the night and somatic anxiety and presented higher total scores than men. Men exhibited a higher degree of mental dullness. The findings of this preliminary study indicate that while not associated with frank depression, the sickle-cell gene has psychological repercussions on various depressive parameters and that these patients can benefit from treatment with pentoxyfylline.
 ...
PMID:[Sickle cell disease and depression: preliminary study using the Hamilton rating scale for depression]. 819 26

The social and clinical characteristics of one hundred and thirty-one women who attended the psychiatric outpatient clinic for the first time at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Ghana Medical School, within five years (1988-1992) were studied. The data suggested that the peak age of depressed women at consultation was between twenty and forty; and that a significant proportion of them were in the married group. Moreover the majority have no or very little education and thus little opportunity for gainful employment hence the majority were self employed. This finding is markedly different from the findings in the Western Countries, where the depressed women were much older, between thirty-five and fifty-four years; single and were gainfully employed. The average number of children per woman were between five and eight and the women had no adequate financial support from their husbands. These social characteristics reflected in the life-style and the kind of social stresses imposed upon these women in coping with life. These stresses showed in the clinical symptoms they represented, which were mainly somatisation disorder and somatic symptoms, with headaches and insomnia being the most prominent. However, psychological symptoms such as morbid thoughts were found to be few at this first consultation. It was highlighted that the social stresses might possibly be the causes of the clinical presentation of the depressed Ghanaian women. It was suggested that the specificity of headaches as a symptom of other psychiatric disorders other than depressive illness, for example schizophrenia and other endogenous psychiatric disorder among Ghanaian women require further research.
 ...
PMID:A study of the social and clinical characteristics of depressive illness among Ghanaian women--(1988-1992). 885 70