Assessing the psychometric properties of quality of life measures in individuals with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: a systematic review.

Purpose: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is the most common motor neuron disease in adults. There are many patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) for measuring quality of life (QoL) and health-related QoL (HRQoL) within this population; however, there is limited consensus regarding which are most valid, reliable, responsive, and interpretable. This systematic review assesses the psychometric properties and interpretability of QoL and HRQoL PROMs for individuals with ALS.

The Sphincter of O'Beirne-Part 2: Report of a Case of Chronic Constipation with Autonomous Dyssynergia.

Background: Chronic constipation can have one or more of many etiologies, and a diagnosis based on symptoms is not sufficient as a basis for treatment, in particular surgery.

Aim: To investigate the cause of chronic constipation in a patient with complete absence of spontaneous bowel movements.

Methods: High-resolution colonic manometry was performed to assess motor functions of the colon, rectum, the sphincter of O'Beirne and the anal sphincters.

Noradrenaline inhibits neurogenic propulsive motor patterns but not neurogenic segmenting haustral progression in the rabbit colon.

Background: Excessive sympathetic inhibition may be a cause of colon motor dysfunction. Our aim was to better understand the mechanisms of sympathetic inhibition on colonic motor patterns using the rabbit colon, hypothesizing that noradrenaline selectively inhibits propulsive motor patterns.

Methods: Changes in motor patterns of the rabbit colon were studied ex vivo using noradrenaline and adrenoceptor antagonists and analyzed using spatiotemporal diameter maps.