Clinicians and people with narcolepsy report varied access to higher-cost narcolepsy treatments in England associated with variations in national and local commissioning. There are no publicly available data quantifying use of these drugs to support policy decisions. We therefore aimed to describe national, regional and local prescribing trends for higher-cost narcolepsy drugs using new national databases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Neuropsychiatric symptoms in SLE and other systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (SARDs) are challenging to diagnose, attribute and manage. We investigated the timings of onset of a broad range of neuropsychiatric (NP) symptoms in relation to timing of SLE onset. In addition, we explored whether NP symptoms may be a prodrome to SARD onset and to subsequent flares.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn increase in respiratory rate (RR) can be an early indicator of clinical deterioration, yet it remains an often-neglected vital sign. The most common way of measuring RR is by manually counting chest-wall movements, a time-consuming and error-prone process. Staffing and funding shortages, particularly in post-acute and long-term care, mean these RR measurements are often infrequent, potentially leading to missed diagnoses and preventable readmissions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Attribution of neuropsychiatric symptoms in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) relies heavily on clinician assessment. Limited clinic time, variable knowledge, and symptom under-reporting contributes to discordance between clinician assessments and patient symptoms. We obtained attributional data directly from patients and clinicians in order to estimate and compare potential levels of direct attribution to SLE of multiple neuropsychiatric symptoms using different patient-derived measures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Isolated Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep Behavior Disorder (iRBD) requires quantitative tools to detect incipient Parkinson's disease (PD).
Methods: A motor battery was designed and compared with the Movement Disorder Society-Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale part III (MDS-UPDRS-III) in people with iRBD and controls. This included two keyboard-based tests (BRadykinesia Akinesia INcoordination tap test and Distal Finger Tapping) and two dual tasking tests (walking and finger tapping).