The development of a new standardized investigator-based interview for use in the differential diagnosis of pervasive developmental disorders is described, together with a diagnostic algorithm based ...on its use. The algorithm correctly identified 16 autistic individuals and none of the 16 nonautistic mentally handicapped subjects. (Author/DB)
Clinical Manual for the Treatment of Autism Makhoul, Samer; Le Couteur, Ann
Child and Adolescent Mental Health,
09/2008, Letnik:
13, Številka:
3
Book Review, Journal Article
Aim: To determine adherence, persistence and continuation beyond 6 months with cholinesterase inhibitors in Australians with Alzheimer's disease.
Methods: Adherence and persistence with ...cholinesterase inhibitors were assessed by data linkage using the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) Authority database and other health databases.
Results: Over 18 000 people commenced cholinesterase inhibitors during 2004. Adherence was 79.4% while the medication possession ratio was 0.88. Some 70.3% of people filled all six scripts for the initial trial period of therapy. Some 57.3% of evaluable patients accessed funding beyond six prescriptions, indicating that their clinicians had declared that there was a two‐point or more greater improvement in the Mini‐Mental State Examination. Despite the high rate of continuation beyond 6 months, the rates of institutionalisation and death were no different to those reported in clinical trials.
Conclusions: Persistence and adherence with cholinesterase inhibitors was reasonable once treatment was established. There was an unexpectedly high continuation rate beyond six prescriptions.
High-functioning autistic adults were compared with normal adults using a battery of tests devised to assess the recognition and expression of emotional cues in both facial and vocal modalities. The ...autistic subjects were relatively impaired in both the appreciation and production of emotional expressions. Although no one test provided a clear-cut separation of the groups at the individual level, composite scores did separate the groups quite well. It is suggested that this battery of tasks may have some value in family genetic studies of autism that need to identify subclinical deficits that might be aetiologically linked with autism.
