Predictors of quality of life in people with Parkinson's disease: evidence for both domain specific and general relationships.

Purpose: To assess the determinants of health-related quality of life (HrQoL) in people with Parkinson's disease (PD).

Method: Eighty-one people with a diagnosis of idiopathic PD took part in a cross-sectional questionnaire-based study. Measures were collected in a community setting and included established determinants of HrQoL (demographic, clinical and cognitive variables) but also included a wide range of mental health variables (depression, anxiety and stress) and, for the first time, positive psychological functioning (optimism and self-esteem).

Illness beliefs and psychological outcome in people with Parkinson's disease.

Illness beliefs are important predictors of psychological outcome in people with chronic illness and evidence suggests these could also be significant in furthering our understanding of psychological functioning in people with Parkinson's disease. Illness beliefs are specific, dynamic representations of an illness and cover dimensions such as cause, identity, consequences and controllability. Eighty-one people with Parkinson's disease completed a series of questionnaires to provide demographic, clinical and psychosocial data, which were then used to assess the relative impact of illness beliefs on their psychological functioning.

An unusual presentation of diabetic amyotrophy: myoclonus.

Diabetic amyotrophy is a distinctive form of diabetic neuropathy. It is characterised by a weakness and wasting of proximal muscles of the lower limbs with associated pain. We report a case of an elderly patient with unusual presentation of diabetic amyotrophy.

The role of working memory and attentional disengagement on inhibitory control: effects of aging and Alzheimer's disease.

Patients with Alzheimer's disease have an impairment of inhibitory control for reasons that are currently unclear. Using an eye-tracking task (the gap-overlap paradigm), we examined whether the uncorrected errors relate to the task of attentional disengagement in preparation for action. Alternatively, the difficulty in correcting for errors may be caused by the working memory representation of the task.

Rapidly progressive polyneuropathy due to dry beriberi in a man: a case report.

Introduction: We describe a case of rapidly progressive and severely debilitating polyneuropathy in a patient with confirmed hypovitaminosis B1, consistent with dry beriberi. Crucially, this is a treatable condition, although sometimes with incomplete recovery, but it is probably under-recognized yet increasingly common given increasing levels of alcohol abuse in the western world.

Case Presentation: A 49-year-old Caucasian British man presented with progressive weakness of both lower limbs of approximately seven months' duration.

Social support and psychological outcome in people with Parkinson's disease: Evidence for a specific pattern of associations.

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between social support and psychological functioning in people with Parkinson's disease.

Method: 34 participants with idiopathic Parkinson's disease completed a comprehensive range of social support assessments and measures of depression, anxiety, stress, general psychological distress and positive affect.

Results: A clear pattern of relationships emerged, with the less satisfaction with social support, the higher the depression, anxiety and stress scores.