Atrial fibrillation and cognitive disorders: An overview on possible correlation.

Atrial Fibrillation is the most common cardiac arrhythmia affecting people of all ages, principally the elderly. Cognitive decline and dementia are also prevalent diseases in elderly. The scientific community always showed interest in the possible association between these two pathological entities, both implicating social and economic burden.

Deep brain stimulation of pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus: role in sleep modulation in advanced Parkinson disease patients: one-year follow-up.

Study Objective: Sleep disorders are frequent non-motor symptoms in Parkinson disease (PD), probably due to multifactorial pathogeneses including disease progression, dopaminergic drugs, or concomitant illness. In recent years, the pedunculopontine tegmental (PPTg) nucleus has been considered a surgical target for deep brain stimulation (DBS) in advanced PD patients. As it is involved in controlling the sleep-wake cycle, we investigated the long-lasting effects of PPTg-DBS on the sleep of five PD patients implanted in both the PPTg and the subthalamic nucleus (STN) by rating two subjective clinical scales for sleep: the Parkinson's Disease Sleep Scale (PDSS), and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS).

REM sleep behavior disorder in a patient with frontotemporal dementia.

We describe a patient with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a tauopathy, who also showed clinical and polysomnographic features of REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD). The patient is a 78-year-old male with a 1 year history of behavioral dysfunction involving emotion, character and social functioning. Brain imaging and the results of neuropsychological testing were consistent with a diagnosis of FTD.

Cognitive impairment in Behçet's disease patients without overt neurological involvement.

We investigated the prevalence of cognitive impairment in patients with Behçet's disease (BD) without overt neurological involvement. The influence of disease duration, disease activity, prednisone dosage, and anxiety and depression levels was evaluated. Twenty-six consecutive BD outpatients and 26 healthy controls matched for age, education and sex completed a comprehensive neuropsychological battery including tests of memory, visuospatial and constructional abilities, language, attention and psychomotor speed, non-verbal reasoning and executive functioning.