Sleep disorders in Parkinson's disease: facts and new perspectives.

Awareness of the clinical and pathophysiological importance of sleep disorders in Parkinson's disease (PD) has been growing in recent years. Sleep disorders are now regarded as important among non-motor symptoms in PD and as a significant variable of PD-related quality of life. Furthermore, some sleep disorders, namely REM behaviour disorder (RBD), has been hypothesised to herald PD by years.

Antiepileptic drug use and epileptic seizures in elderly nursing home residents: a survey in the province of Pavia, Northern Italy.

Some surveys indicate that elderly nursing home residents are extensively prescribed antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). Few studies have evaluated the prevalence of seizure-related diagnoses as a risk factor for AED administration in nursing homes. To assess the prevalence of AED use and of epileptic seizures in the elderly nursing home residents in our country, we considered age and gender data, functional status (measured by the Barthel's Index), drugs currently administered on a scheduled basis, clinical diagnoses from the patient's chart including possible history of epileptic seizures, of all subjects aged 60 years and over living in 21 federated nursing homes in the province of Pavia, Northern Italy.

Quantified EEG analysis monitoring in a novel model of general anaesthesia in rats.

The aim of this research was to evaluate the safety and reliability of an anaesthetic mixture (Equitensine: pentobarbital, chloral hydrate, dihydroxypropane, ethanol) which, unlike other 'classic' anaesthetics, such as ketamine [The Electroencephalogram in Anaesthesia, Springer, Berlin, 1984], has been demonstrated not to induce alterations in the extracellular concentrations of cerebral excitatory amino acids. Quantified EEG analysis monitoring and behavioural observation were used to quantify the degree and the time course of the changes in cerebral electrical activity, analgesia and sedation induced, in rats, by the compound under investigation. Equitensine (0.