Alternative or complementary attitudes toward alternative and complementary medicines.

Background: Integrative and complementary health approaches (ICHA) are often pursued by patients facing chronic illnesses. Most of the studies that investigated the factors associated with ICHA consumption have considered that the propensity to use ICHA is a stable or fixed characteristic of an individual. However, people may prefer using ICHA in some situations and not in others, depending on the characteristics of the illness to face.

Use of psychotropic drugs, systemic antihistamines and medications for cough in 6-year-old children: a survey in the Bas-Rhin Region, France.

Purpose: The use of drugs in France is among the highest in developed countries. Among them, psychotropic medication in children has always been a matter of concern. Furthermore, on the basis of concerns about safety and efficacy, international authorities have either advised against the use of cough and cold medication or considered such an action.

Confusion after spine injury: cerebral fat embolism after traumatic rupture of a Tarlov cyst: case report.

Background: Acute low back pain is a very common symptom and reason for many medical consultations. In some unusual circumstances it could be linked to a rare aetiology.

Case Presentation: We report a 70-year-old man with an 8-month history of left posterior thigh and leg pain who had sudden confusion after a fall from standing.

[Recognizing patients in life-threatening emergencies or potentially serious conditions].

The identification of a vital distress belongs to necessary knowledge of any medical doctor. The clinical pictures can reach a level of complexity such as the expert is likely to ignore gravity and the immediate attitude to have. However the search for a vital distress starts from an initially simple clinical step and to the range all.

[Implication of emergency departments in the regulation of public hospitalizations].

Purpose: Emergency departments become a useful way to access to hospital care. Since these last years difficulties of hospitalization, mainly of the elderly, after visit to the emergency department, are on the increase.

Current Knowledge And Key Points: Emergency departments are an important mode of recruitment for hospital units, 4 patients to 10 are hospitalized from emergency departments.

[Substitution therapy of drug addicts].

ANALYZING PROPOSED TREATMENTS: The large body of literature on substitution treatments for drug abusers describes a variety of social settings and an extremely heterogeneous set of protocols. Establishing correlations between protocols and practical applications is thus a difficult task. METHADONE: The most widely studied substance is methadone.

[Acute poisoning during substitution therapy based on high-dosage buprenorphine. 29 clinical cases--20 fatal cases].

Objectives: Buprenorphine has been an important advance in care for drug abusers, but the toxic risk may be fatal. We report here two original series of buprenorphine poisoning in opiate abusers on substitution therapy.

Patients: The first series included 20 males and 9 females, aged 20-35 years (mean = 27.

Kinetics of amatoxins in human poisoning: therapeutic implications.

The kinetics of alpha and beta amanitin were studied in 45 patients intoxicated with Amanita Phalloides. The amatoxins were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography in plasma (43 cases), urine (35 cases), gastroduodenal fluid (12 cases), feces (12 cases) and tissues (4 cases). All patients had gastrointestinal symptoms and 43 developed an acute hepatitis.

When should dialysis be performed in lithium poisoning? A kinetic study in 14 cases of lithium poisoning.

Lithium kinetics were studied in 14 patients with lithium poisoning. Three patients were treated by hemodialysis. Serum lithium peak concentrations ranged between 1.

[Duodenal perforations by the hooks of a Kimray-Greenfield filter].

A case is reported of a duodenal perforation by a Kimray-Greenfield filter hook in a 66-year-old female patient. This device had been inserted four years before, after a pulmonary embolism. The patient presented with epigastric pain, vomiting and extracellular dehydration with renal failure.

[Sleep disorders and use of psychotropic drugs in 6-year-old children].

The purpose of this prospective survey, conducted over a two years period, was to study the use of psychoactive drugs among six year-old children in the Bas-Rhin administrative "département", of eastern France. The factors analysed were family environment, after-school time, the child's sleep, the locality where the child lived and the drugs used. The child was examined by school doctors, in the presence of the parents, at the compulsory consultation at the start of first-year infant school.

[Acute verapamil poisoning. 6 cases. Review of the literature].

Six cases of acute verapamil poisoning are reported. The dose ingested ranged between 1.2 and 9.

[Acute diltiazem poisoning: kinetic and hemodynamics study].

The authors report three cases of diltiazem overdose with hypotension and atrio-ventricular conduction disturbances. Hemodynamic study in 2 cases showed a hyperkinetic state with a decrease of systemic vascular resistances. Diltiazem kinetics studied in 2 cases showed a plasma half life of 5.

[Toxicity of calcium inhibitors].

Calcium antagonists decrease the intracellular concentration of calcium ions. They act essentially on the smooth vascular muscle, on the cardiac muscle and on the automatic and conducting cells in the heart. At toxic doses these effects induce hypotension, shock and disturbances of sinusal automatism and atrio-ventricular conduction.

Acute mercury chloride intoxication. Effects of hemodialysis and plasma exchange on mercury kinetic.

A 27 year-old man developed after ingestion of mercury chloride, 6 g, a hypovolemic shock, an acute renal failure and a necrosis of the stomach which required a total gastrectomy. The anuria did not improve and required 42 hemodialyses. Subsequent evolution showed numerous complications and the patient died on the 91st day.