Publications by authors named "D Real de Asua"

Background: Down Syndrome Regression Disorder (DSRD) is a rare and poorly understood disorder of the central nervous system, characterized by acute or subacute neuropsychiatric symptoms in previously healthy individuals with Down syndrome (DS). Many patients exhibit immunotherapy-responsiveness, indicative of immune dysregulation as a potential underlying etiology. While hypotheses are emerging regarding the role of interferon signaling in DSRD and other autoimmune conditions associated with DS, it is unclear why a small subset of individuals with DS develop DSRD.

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Objectives: Characterise the circumstances associated with death during admission of adults with Down syndrome (DS) and to identify predictors of mortality.

Patients And Methods: Observational study based on data on all emergent admissions of adults with DS to hospitals of the Spanish National Health System between 1997 and 2014. We analysed epidemiological and clinical variables.

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Article Synopsis
  • Alzheimer's disease is a significant health issue for older adults with Down syndrome, and typical diagnostic methods, like MRI, are often not suitable due to difficulties with prolonged scan times.
  • This study used automated analysis of CT scans from 98 individuals with Down syndrome to identify correlations between brain structure changes and the severity of dementia stages, alongside specific Alzheimer’s biomarkers.
  • The findings indicated that increased dementia severity was linked to reduced gray and white matter volumes in the temporal lobe, suggesting a promising new method for assessing Alzheimer’s in populations that struggle with traditional imaging techniques.
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We report the case of an 18-year-old woman with Down syndrome (DS) who developed Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TSC) immediately after the administration of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), a treatment prescribed for Down syndrome regression disorder resistant to oral psychotropic drugs. TSC is a nonischemic cardiomyopathy related to psychological or physical stress, which has been described as a rare complication of ECT (Kinoshita et al., 2023, Journal of Electroconvulsive Therapy, 39, 185-192).

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Movies can serve valuable didactic purposes teaching clinical ethics to medical students. However, using film sequences as means to develop critical thinking is not a straightforward task. There is a significant gap in the literature regarding how to analyse the ethical content embedded in these clips systematically, in a way that facilitates the students' transition from anecdotal reflections to abstract thinking.

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