April 15, 1999

The hallmark physical signs of Parkinson's disease are tremor, rigidity and bradykinesia. Levodopa remains the mainstay of treatment.

Six guidelines are presented for the management of children with primary nonretentive encopresis or stool toileting refusal, with an emphasis on practicality and ease of implementation for the family physician. An illustrative case demonstrates the efficacy and simplicity of…

Male pattern baldness is considered a normal variant rather than a disease, but up to one half of balding patients have psychologic sequelae. Minoxidil, a topical treatment, and finasteride, an oral treatment, are relatively new products that are modestly effective in the…

Effective conservative treatment of plantar fasciitis focuses on proper biomechanics of the foot while temporary measures are instituted to provide pain relief.

Many of the risk factors that lead to cardiovascular disease in adulthood have their roots in childhood. Such risk factors should be identified in children and adolescents and, when possible, eliminated during the formative years.

The common blood liver function tests assess only liver injury. Overall hepatic function can be evaluated by applying the albumin, bilirubin and prothrombin time values in the modified Child-Turcotte grading system.

Serologic tests can be negative if they are performed at the stage when lesions are present, and the VDRL test can be negative in patients with late syphilis.

Methods of enhancing the detection of postpartum major depression and appropriate treatment modalities—usually antidepressant therapy alone or in combination with psychotherapy—can help physicians manage this debilitating disorder.

Tourette's syndrome is a chronic tic disorder with onset in childhood and peak severity between nine and 11 years of age. It is characterized by motor and vocal tics. Most children have a fluctuating course.

If you've been waiting for an update on Parkinson's disease, you won't want to miss this issue's cover article on page 2155. Written by Rosabel Young, M.D., M.S., and illustrated by John Karapelou, this state-of-the-art review is not only the culmination of months of hard work…

Selected policy and health issues news briefs from AAFP News Now.

That crack in the sidewalk could really break your mother's back. A study of 50 women and 29 men who were all healthy and 65 years of age or older revealed that women are four times more likely to fall after tripping, compared with men of the same age, under equal conditions…

Coronary artery disease risk factors, including systolic and diastolic blood pressures, serum lipoprotein levels, cigarette smoking, and body mass index, are directly related to the initiation and progression of atherosclerosis in children.1,2

Because the clinical care and public health systems in the United States must be able to respond rapidly to emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently published a plan, Preventing Emerging Infectious…

A two-year-old child riding a tricycle dies, the random victim of a drive-by shooting. A pregnant woman is hit by a stray bullet in East Los Angeles. Street gang members storm the emergency department of an urban hospital to “finish off ” a rival gang member. Are these random…

WLL has a patient with hepatitis C that was contracted during a blood transfusion over 10 years ago. The infection was associated with a slowly increasing alanine aminotransferase (ALT) level over the past two years. Liver biopsy showed mild to moderate inflammation with no…

(26th Annual Meeting of the North American Primary Care Research Group) The use of intrapartum epidural anesthesia may be associated with increased rates of breast-feeding cessation soon after birth, according to a pilot study of 124 mothers of healthy infants admitted to a…

(Great Britain—The Practitioner, December 1998, p. 836.) The prevalence of cataracts rises exponentially with age and is accelerated in patients with diabetes mellitus. Patients usually complain of decreased vision, especially in bright environments, but many cases are…

In 1994, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched the first phase of a nationwide effort to protect the public from infectious diseases. This past fall, the CDC released an updated document titled “Preventing Emerging Infectious Diseases: A Strategy for the…

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has issued a practice bulletin on the medical management of tubal pregnancy. ACOG Practice Bulletin No. 3 was published in the December 1998 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The seven-page practice bulletin was…

In a policy statement published in the January 1999 issue of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) strongly recommends that physicians encourage parents who have school-age children and adolescents with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection to tell those…

Letter

In Parkinson's disease, the brain cells that control your muscles are damaged. This causes symptoms like these:

Most children have the skills for toilet training between 24 and 30 months of age. Some children may not be ready until they are three years old or more. It's different for each child.

Male pattern baldness is hair loss that happens because the male hormone testosterone (say: tess-toss-ter-own) changes the hair roots.

Syphilis (say: siff-uh-liss) is a serious infection. It's passed from one person to another during sex. It's caused by a bacteria (germ). You could get syphilis by touching the blood or sores of a person who has syphilis, especially sores on the person's mouth, penis, vagina or…

After having a baby, many women have mood swings. One minute they feel happy, the next minute they start to cry. They may feel a little depressed, have a hard time concentrating, lose their appetite or find that they can't sleep well even when the baby is asleep. These symptoms…

Tics are movements or sounds that are repeated over and over. A person with a tic can't control the movement or sounds. Tics usually last less than a year. Throat clearing and eye squinting are common tics. Tics are often worse when a person is stressed, tired or anxious. Some…