EUROPEAN NEUROLOGICAL REVIEW – VOLUME 8 ISSUE 1 – SUMMER 2013

It is a great pleasure to be invited to write the foreword of the 8.1 issue 2013 of the European Neurological Review. The present edition contains a large variety of neurological topics, covering health economics and cost illness aspects, therapeutical interventions in Huntington’s disease and epilepsy in children, stroke-related topics, auto-immune disorders of the brain, […]

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder worldwide, the first being Alzheimer’s disease. In industrialised countries, PD has an estimated overall prevalence of 0.3 % and an estimated 1 % prevalence in the population of individuals over 60 years of age. PD disease manifests itself through neuromotor symptoms such as tremor, bradykinesia, […]

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a genetic disease with autosomal dominant transmission and is unique amongst neurodegenerative diseases in that predictive testing is available before clinical symptoms are evident.1 As such, individuals with a family history of HD can choose to be tested and can establish if they will eventually get the disease. Some individuals choose […]

Stroke is the second most common cause of death and a major cause of disability worldwide. Because of the ageing population, the burden of stroke is likely to increase during the next 20 years, especially in developing countries.1 The majority (85 %) of strokes are ischaemic: patients present with asymptomatic bruits, transient ischaemic attacks (TIA) […]

Sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) refers to momentary, often cyclical, cessations in breathing (apnoeas) or momentary or sustained reductions in the breath amplitude (hypopnoeas), sufficient to cause arousal from sleep and/or significant arterial hypoxemia and hypercapnia. causes of breath cessation during sleep are classified as obstructive (OSA), or central (CSA).1 The observation of both obstructive and central […]

Lacunes are defined as small deep infarcts and are generally considered as the hallmark of small-vessel disease.1 They are mostly asymptomatic2 or give rise to a specific3 or a less specific lacunar syndrome.4 The short-term outcome is considered to be better than in those with a territorial infarct,5 but on the long-term mortality rate is […]

The first type of autoimmune limbic encephalitis, reported in 1968, was a paraneoplastic disorder occurring in association with small-cell lung cancer (SCLC).1 Until 2001, it was believed that ‘limbic encephalitis’ almost always associated with cancer and had a poor outcome. In 2001, a form of immunotherapy-responsive limbic encephalitis with IgG antibodies initially considered against voltage […]

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is characterised by progressive degeneration of upper (UMN) and lower (LMN) motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. Rare in its own right, ALS is the most common form of motor neuron disease (MND). Primary lateral sclerosis, a disease isolated to UMNs, makes up 1–3 %, and progressive muscular atrophy, […]

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disorder with selective and progressive loss of upper and lower motor neurons. Although this disease was identified more than 140 years ago by Charcot, the pathogenesis has yet remained unknown. Recent advancements in neuroimaging, neurophysiology and neuropathology have elucidated subclinical or clinical involvements of the non-motor systems, in […]

Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) is the most common treatable chronic neuropathy in the western world with a prevalence ranging from one to nine cases per 100,000.1 Typical onset of CIDP is between the ages of 30 and 60 years and presents as either a relapsing or progressive, symmetrical neuropathy with proximal and distal weakness […]

Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) denotes a spectrum of acquired, chronically progressive or recurrent, immunemediated disorders of the peripheral nervous system with variable pathology and pathogenesis.1 The estimated prevalence may be up to nine per 100,000 population.2,3 A universally accepted definition of disease does not exist. A variety of clinical and investigational criteria have been […]

Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) is an acquired immune-mediated inflammatory disorder of the peripheral nervous system with an estimated prevalence of about 0.5 per 100,000 children and 1 to 2 per 100,000 adults.1,2 Typical CIDP arises between the ages of 30 and 60 years and is characterised from a progressive, symmetric proximal and distal muscle […]