Browsing by Author "Cherian, PJ"

Now showing 1 - 14 of 14
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    Adaptation of the ACE for a Malayalam speaking population in southern India
    (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GERIATRIC PSYCHIATRY, 2004)
    Objective To adapt the Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination (ACE) as a dementia-screening tool in a community in south India. To establish that items in the adapted version are equivalent to that in the original.Methods The ACE was adapted into the local language, Malayalam (m-ACE), following cultural/linguistic modifications. To establish equivalence, qualitative comparisons were made (on the distribution of scores, percentage scoring at ceiling, and relative difficulty across items) between a UK sample receiving the ACE (n = 50; mean age = 67.9 +/- 7.4; education greater than or equal to9, mean = 10.9 +/- 2.5) and a community-based educationally-stratified Indian sample receiving the m-ACE: 'India greater than or equal to9' (n = 50; mean age = 67.8 +/- 5.2; education greater than or equal to9, mean = 13.9 +/- 2.7) and 'India less than or equal to8' (n = 50; mean age = 67.1 +/- 5.3; education less than or equal to8, mean = 3.1 +/- 2.0).Results Most ACE items were retained. The score distribution (mean +/- ISD), percentage at ceiling, and relative difficulties across items is comparable between the UK and the educationally equivalent India greater than or equal to9 groups. Language, Naming, Attention and Orientation are relatively easy (greater than or equal to80% at ceiling) and Recall and Verbal fluency are relatively difficult (less than or equal to22% at ceiling). Although the percentage at ceiling were lower for the India less than or equal to8 group, the order of relative difficulty was similar and the percentage scoring at floor was less than or equal to10% on all except visuospatial item.Conclusions The m-ACE provides a culture-fair Malayalam adaptation of the ACE with component items of equivalent difficulty. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.
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    Brainstem abscess complicating tetralogy of fallot successfully treated with antibiotics alone
    (NEUROLOGY INDIA, 2000)
    Medically treated brainstem abscess in a 11 year old boy with tetralogy of Fallot is reported. There was a complete resolution of the lesion without any neurologic sequelae during parenteral antibiotic therapy with crystalline penicillin, chloramphenicol and metronidazole. The pathogenesis and management of cardiogenic brain abscesses in general and brainstem abscess in particular has been reviewed.
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    Clinical characteristics of a South Indian cohort of juvenile myoclonic epilepsy probands
    (SEIZURE-EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF EPILEPSY, 2003)
    Despite the distinctive clinical and electroencephalographic features known for five decades, even today, juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) is frequently unrecognised and misdiagnosed in both developed and developing countries. Utilising 183 JME probands belonging to the South Indian state of Kerala, assembled through a tertiary referral centre for molecular genetic studies, we explored the phenotypic peculiarities, clinical genetics, and problems and pitfalls in the diagnosis of JME. At referral, only six (3.3%) patients carried the diagnostic label of JME, default in diagnosis resulted from failure to elicit the history of myoclonic jerks by the referring physicians. During the mean delay of 8.6 +/- 7.0 years in diagnosing JME, seizure control in the majority was poor due to inappropriate antiepileptic drug (AED) therapy. A history of epileptic seizures was obtained in 6.2% of the first-degree and 2.2% of the second-degree relatives of the probands; 37.7 and 11.1% of them, respectively, were diagnosed as JME. Although most of the clinical features of our cohort were in accordance with the literature, two notable differences we observed were the relatively increased occurrence of absence seizures and low frequency of photoparoxysmal responses. Although the variability in the clinical characteristics of JME may be apparent due to differences in the ascertainment of the data, they may well be an expression of a true clinical heterogeneity, and are in accordance with the complex and variable mode of inheritance and conflicting linkage studies reported for this syndrome from different ethnic groups. (C) 2003 BEA Trading Ltd. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
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    Corpora amylacea (CoA) in refractory mesial temporal lobe epilepsy: Clinico-pathological correlations
    (EPILEPSIA, 2005) Ashalatha, R; Cherian, PJ; Radhakrishnan, VV; Radhakrishnan, K; Sarma, PS
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    Effects of age, education and gender on verbal fluency
    (JOURNAL OF CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL NEUROPSYCHOLOGY, 2003)
    The objective was to study the effects of age, education and gender on verbal fluency in cognitively unimpaired, older individuals. The methods used were as follows: cognitively unimpaired elderly (55-84 years) subjects (n = 153), were administered category (animal) (CF) and letter (/pa/) (LF) fluency tasks, in their native language of Malayalam. Results and conclusions were (1) Level of education, but not age or gender, significantly influence LF. (2) Level of education (directly) and in the elderly subjects, age (inversely) affect CF. (3) Age, but not education, has a differential effect on the tasks of verbal fluency, influencing CF more than LF.
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    Emotional facial paresis in temporal lobe epilepsy: its prevalence and lateralizing value
    (SEIZURE-EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF EPILEPSY, 2003)
    The selection of patients with medically refractory temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) for surgery depends on the concordance of data from clinical, imaging and electroencephalographic evaluation. Though clinical examination is often normal, emotional facial paresis has been described in patients with TLE. Utilizing a well-characterized group of mesial TLE (MTLE) patients, who have achieved excellent seizure outcome following anterior temporal lobectomy with amygdalohippocampectomy (ATL), we investigated the prevalence, predictive value and associations of emotional facial paresis. When compared to 8 out of 50 control subjects (16%), 36 out of 50 MTLE patients (72%) exhibited unilateral emotional facial paresis; the difference was highly significant (P < 0.0001). The presence of contralateral emotional facial paresis correctly predicted the side of ATL in 86.1% patients. The occurrence of emotional facial paresis was significantly associated with longer duration of epilepsy prior to ATL and left ATL. Our observations confirm that emotional facial parersis contralateral to the side of mesial temporal sclerosis (MTS) is a valuable localizing sign in correctly predicting the epileptogenic temporal lobe. We hypothesize that the presence of an intact right hemisphere and pathological changes more extensive than MTS may be required for emotional facial paresis to readily manifest. (C) 2002 BEA Trading Ltd. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
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    Genetic association analysis of KCNQ3 and juvenile myoclonic epilepsy in a South Indian population
    (HUMAN GENETICS, 2003)
    Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) is a common subtype of idiopathic generalized epilepsy that shows a complex pattern of inheritance. We have tested the association between JME phenotype and an intragenic marker in KCNQ3 by using the transmission disequilibrium test in 119 probands and their parents. Mutations in KCNQ3 are known to cause benign familial neonatal convulsions and are involved in the physiologically important M current in neurons. Our results provide suggestive evidence of allelic association between JME and KCNQ3 (P-value=0.008) and raise an interesting possibility of a genetic contribution to JME, viz., of a gene that causes a monogenic form of human epilepsy.
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    Idiopathic hypertrophic cranial pachymeningitis
    (NEUROLOGY INDIA, 2002)
    Idiopathic hypertrophic cranial pachymeningitis is a rare form of ribrosing chronic inflammatory process of unknown etiology, which causes thickening of the intracranial dura mater. We present four patients with hypertrophic cranial pachymeningitis who presented with chronic headache and cranial nerve palsies. The diagnosis of idiopathic hypertrophic cranial pachymeningitis was based on neuroimaging findings of thickened enhancing dura, exclusion of known causes and histopathologic findings compatible with nonspecific inflammation in the meningeal biopsies. Corticosteroid therapy was effective in all cases in inducing a complete or partial remission of the neurologic symptoms and signs. We describe the clinical, radiological and pathological features of idiopathic hypertrophic cranial pachymeningitis and discuss the relationship of this entity with other inflammatory fibrosclerotic disorders to explain the pathogenesis. A high index of suspicion, prompt confirmation of the diagnosis by meningeal biopsy, and early institution and long-term maintenance of steroid therapy may help to prevent irreversible neurologic sequelae, especially blindness.
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    Instrumental activities of daily living scale for dementia screening in elderly people
    (INTERNATIONAL PSYCHOGERIATRICS, 2005)
    Objective: To develop and validate an Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale for elderly people (IADL-E) to use in conjunction with cognitive screening tests for dementia in an educationally and socioculturally heterogeneous population.Method: Eleven IADL items were selected and weighted for major factors causing heterogeneity in the population-gender, education, social (rural/urban) setting and age. Each item was rated for its applicability (yes/no), degree of disability (scored from 0 to 2) and causative impairment (cognitive and/or physical). From this a composite index of cognitive (CDI) or physical (PDI) disability was derived. Validation was performed retrospectively on 240 subjects: 135 without and 105 with dementia by DSM-IV.Results: The IADL-E had a high internal consistency (alpha = 0.95). The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was 0.97 (CI = 0.94-0.99). A cutoff score of 16 on CDI provided a sensitivity of 0.91, specificity 0.99 and positive predictive value 0.76 (at 5% base rate). IADL-E correlated highly with clinical (DSM-IV, K = 0.89), functional (CDR, 0.82) and cognitive (Mini-mental Status Examination, MMSE, 0.74) diagnoses. It showed good responsiveness, with the change on CDI over a median of 23 months correlating significantly with that on MMSE (coefficient =-0.382, CI=-0.667 to -0.098; p=0.009). Individual items had good interrater and test-retest reliability.Conclusions: The IADL-E is a reliable, sensitive and responsive scale of functional abilities useful in dementia screening in a socioculturally heterogeneous population.
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    Neuropsychological and quality of life outcome after anterior temporal lobectomy for medically refractory temporal lobe epilepsy
    (EPILEPSIA, 2005) Alexander, A; Sylaja, PN; Cherian, PJ; Radhakrishnan, K; Sarma, PS
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    Protective and susceptibility effects of hSKCa3 allelic variants on juvenile myoclonic epilepsy
    (JOURNAL OF MEDICAL GENETICS, 2005) Vijai, J; Kapoor, A; Ravishankar, HM; Cherian, PJ; Kuruttukulam, G; Rajendran, B; Sridharan, R; Rangan, G; Girija, AS; Jayalakshmi, S; Mohandas, S; Mani, KS; Radhakrishnan, K; Anand, A
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    Selection of ideal candidates for epilepsy surgery in developing countries
    (NEUROLOGY INDIA, 2002) Cherian, PJ; Radhakrishnan, K
    In order to become cost-effective, epilepsy surgery centers in developing countries will have to achieve excellent results by selecting candidates destined to have a seizure-free outcome using locally available limited technology and expertise, without compromising on patient safety. Our experience illustrates that this goal can be accomplished by selecting patients, whose epileptogenic zone can be unquestionably established, based on history, magnetic resonance imaging, and interictal and ictal scalp electroencephalogram findings. Patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy, and those with circumscribed potentially epileptogenic lesions belong to this category. A stepwise approach by reserving more difficult to treat patients to later date as experience develops, or by referring them to a better-equipped center, will help each center to understand its capabilities and limitations and to move forward. It would be essential to work with and educate the local public and professionals, if the epilepsy surgery program in a developing region were to have a lasting impact, It is encouraging to note that, despite major challenges, in the last one-decade, several epilepsy centers in the developing world have not only successfully implemented epilepsy surgery programs, but also have produced results comparable to that from developed countries at a fractional cost.
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    The significance of corpora amylacea in mesial temporal lobe epilepsy
    (NEUROLOGY INDIA, 2003)
    Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) associated with mesial temporal sclerosis (MTS), mesial TLE (MTLE), is the commonest medically refractory adult epilepsy syndrome. Corpora amylacea (CoA) have been shown to be a marker of MTS. We compared 9 patients with MTS who had dense deposition of CoA in their hippocampi with 25 patients with MTS who did not have CoA. The patients with CoA were significantly older and they showed a trend towards having a significantly longer duration of epilepsy. The postoperative seizure outcome at 2 years was not different in the 2 groups. Our results could indicate the progressive nature of the pathology of MTS, probably indicating excitotoxic damage due to recurrent seizures, but they need to be verified by clinicopathological correlation among a larger number of patients with MTLE.
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    Triphasic waves in a patient with brainstem hemorrhage modified by hemispheric infarct
    (EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY, 2004) Cherian, PJ; Radhakrishnan, K