The Impact of Heat on an Emergency Department in Italy: Attributable Visits among Children, Adults, and the Elderly during the Warm Season.

Introduction: Recent studies suggest that heat is associated with an increase in the number of ambulance calls and emergency department visits. We investigated the association between heat and daily number of emergency department visits at the University Hospital of Verona during the warm seasons 2011-2012 and we assessed the magnitude of the impact in terms of attributable events, focusing on the role of age and triage codification.

Materials And Methods: We used a Poisson model to analyse the association between daily number of visits and daily mean apparent temperature, accounting for air pollution level and seasonality.

Pisa syndrome in Parkinson disease: An observational multicenter Italian study.

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of Pisa syndrome (PS) in patients with Parkinson disease (PD) and to assess the association between PS and demographic and clinical variables.

Methods: In this multicenter cross-sectional study, consecutive outpatients with PD attending 21 movement disorders Italian tertiary centers were enrolled and underwent standardized clinical evaluation. PS was defined as trunk lateral deviation ≥10°.

What is still missing in acute-phase treatment of stroke: a prospective observational study.

Early recognition of stroke symptoms and activation of emergency medical service (EMS) positively affects prognosis after a stroke. To assess stroke awareness among stroke patients and medical personnel in the catchment area of Verona Hospital and how it affects stroke care, we prospectively studied timing of acute stroke care in relation to patients' characteristics. Patients admitted to Medical Departments of Verona University Hospital between January 1st and December 31st 2009 with a diagnosis of TIA or stroke were enrolled.