Effects of attachment styles, childhood traumas, and alexithymia in Turkish patients with epilepsy and functional seizures.

Introduction: In this cross-sectional study, we used self-report scales to compare childhood traumas, attachment styles, and alexithymia among patients with functional seizures (FS) to patients with epilepsy and healthy controls. We also investigated risk factors associated with FS.

Material And Methods: A total of 44 patients with epilepsy, 14 patients with FS, and 25 healthy controls were included.

Social Anxiety Level in Adult Patients With Epilepsy and Their First-Degree Cohabiting Relatives.

Epilepsy affects not only the patient but also the patient's cohabiting relatives, to various degrees. This study investigated state and trait anxiety, depression, and social fear and avoidance levels in 48 adult patients with epilepsy and 48 family members, compared with 43 healthy control subjects, using the Beck Anxiety Inventory, the Beck Depression Inventory, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale. The results suggested that the patients and their first-degree relatives had higher levels of depression, state and trait anxiety, and avoidance compared with healthy subjects.

Therapeutic Plasma Exchange in Neurologic Diseases: An Experience with 91 Patients in Seven Years.

Introduction: In this study, we report the results of our experience of therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) for neuroimmunologic disorders performed at our hospital over a seven-year period.

Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 91 patients (53 male, 38 female) who had been treated at our center with TPE.

Results: 60 patients with Guillain-Barrè syndrome (GBS), 23 with myasthenia gravis (MG), 4 with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) and 1 patient each with polymyositis, septic encephalopathy, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) and Opsoclonus-Myoclonus syndrome (OMS) received TPE.

Left atrial appendage aneurysm presenting with recurrent embolic strokes.

A case of left atrial appendage aneurysm is described in a 40-year-old man, who presented with recurrent embolic strokes and was asymptomatic until the last 6 months. Chest X-ray revealed a slightly prominent upper left heart border. The diagnosis was made by transthoracic two-dimensional echocardiography and confirmed by transesophageal echocardiography, magnetic resonance imaging and also by surgery.