Browsing by Author "Dragasevic, Natasa (59157743200)"

Objectives: The aims of this study were to identify the clinical and demographic factors influencing health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) and to compare HR-QoL measures between various types of focal dystonia (cervical dystonia, blepharospasm, and writer's cramp). Methods: We examined 157 consecutive patients with adult-onset primary focal dystonia, and HR-QoL was assessed by using the SF-36 questionnaire. Univariate and multivariate regression analyses were performed. Results: Patients with writer's cramp scored better in all SF-36 domains, except role functioning physical (RP), while these differences were statistically significant for physical functioning (PF) (p = 0.020), bodily pain (BP) (p = 0.001), and general health (GH) (p = 0.004). Patients with writer's cramp and blepharospasm scored significantly better for BP (p = 0.001) than patients with cervical dystonia. We found that each of the eight dimensions of SF-36 proved to be significantly correlated to the Hamilton depression rating scale score in patients with torticollis and blepharospsm, while vitality (VT), social functioning (SF), and mental health (MH) scales showed statistically significant correlations in patients with hand dystonia. Similar relationships were observed between anxiety and SF-36 domains. Conclusion: Depression and anxiety are the most important predictors of poorer HR-QoL in patients with all three types of focal dystonia. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The objective of this study was to estimate probability of survival of Huntington's disease (HD) patients in Serbia as a function of CAG repeat length and selected demographic variables. This follow-up study was carried out at the Institute of Neurology, Clinical Centre of Serbia, Belgrade, 1982-2004. The study group consisted of 112 HD patients. The significant inverse correlation was found between CAG repeat length and age at onset of HD (r = -0.732, P = 0.001) and age at death (r = -0.760, P = 0.001). The cumulative probabilities of survival in a five, ten, fifteen, and twenty-years' period were 90.9, 63.2, 10.3 and 4.5%, respectively. Higher survival probabilities were registered in female patients, as well as in those with older age at onset and lower number of CAG repeat length (≤46). The Cox regression analysis showed that significantly poorer outcome of HD in our population was related to younger age at onset (HR-hazard ratio = 1.9; P = 0.047), and larger CAG numbers (HR = 2.4; P = 0.071). The female sex was statistically significantly associated with longer survival (HR = 0.4; P = 0.007). These data might be of some importance for further exploration of natural history and prognosis of HD. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.