Bulletin de la Société des Sciences Médicales du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg

The diagnosis of neurocognitive disorders such as mild cognitive impairments and dementia is a challenging endeavour. On behalf of the neuropsychologists of the Luxembourgish Society of Psychology (SLP), the authors develop a common framework for the neuropsychological diagnosis of dementia in the Luxembourgish context (NP-DiaDem) and promote the role of the neuropsychologist in this process. The paper's aim is threefold: (I) highlighting the role of the neuropsychological evaluation to support the medical diagnosis of neurodegenerative cognitive disorders; (II) providing recommendations for the neuropsychological assessment, based on recently published international guidelines; and (III) providing a new diagnostic process, facilitating the differentiation between mild and more severe states of cognitive decline...

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY: To evaluate the efficacy of fractionated stereotactic reirradiation with CyberKnife (CK) performed in 6 patients with high grade gliomas treated in Luxembourg with local recurrence (LR). PATIENTS AND METHODS: Between 04.2014 and 06.2016, 6 patients with multiform grade IV gliomas LR were reirradiated with CK (protocol CNER re-RT CFB 1), as reirradiation. The mean time between primary radiotherapy and local recurrence (LR) is 14.1 months [4 - 38]...

Regular practice of physical activity (PA) has many health benefits in both healthy individuals and in people with non-communicable diseases (NCDs). In order to disseminate this evidence and to strengthen the promotion of PA in people with NCDs, the Sport-Santé project was created in Luxembourg and officially launched in April 2015. In 2014, a stocktaking of the different organizations offering PA for people with NCDs was realized in order to develop the Sport-Santé project. Different communication tools were used to promote Sport-Santé as well as the aforementioned organizations...

BACKGROUND: The benefits of cardiac rehabilitation are well accepted. However, there still remains a debate concerning the risk of cardiac events, especially arrhythmias, during exercise training. The goal of the study was to retrospectively analyze events, including arrhythmias, in the cardiac rehabilitation unit of the Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg during 2014-2015 and to identify if there was a link between patients stratified as high-risk patients and events. METHODS: This analysis included each patient that participated in cardiac rehabilitation at the Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg during 2014 and 2015...

This is the report on the case of a 74 year old male patient who was admitted to hospital emergency because of a distended bladder, which was detected on an MRI. This MRI was performed because of an acute paralysis of the patient’s left leg. After various examinations we could conclude that the patient’s neurological symptoms were not due to metastases of a solid tumour as we expected, but to a primary spinal diffuse B-cell lymphoma. The central nervous system, and especially the spinal cord, are an extremely rare location for primary B-Cell lymphoma...

Benzodiazepine hypnotics bear a higher risk of high dose dependence than benzodiazepine anxiolytics, according to a recent study in Luxemburg. This article summarizes the main indications of these molecules and the current treatment recommendations. It provides an overview of public health actions of the past and the future to reduce their excessive consumption.

Our study set out to monitor all admissions admitted to an oncology ward over a period of 60 days between 20/10/14 and 18/12/14. We wanted to analyse the reasons for admission, in order to identify treatment related complications and other preventable causes for inpatient admission.

Wernicke’s encephalopathy (WE) is a very rare complication of surgical intervention, especially among patients with no liver dysfunction and no history of alcohol abuse. In a surgical setting, Wernicke’s syndrome was mostly associated with abdominal surgery (bariatric, e.g. gastric bypass, splenectomy) but there are no papers in the literature dealing with such a complication among spine patients.

After an outline on the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church towards jewish doctors, the author list some arguments to explain why Jewish doctors were that sought after. He then concentrates on the situation in Luxembourg - on indigenous doctors and migrants, finishing with a parallel between asylum seekers from yesterday and today.

Over a short period of one month we undertook a systematic review of all medications of our residents in the nursing home. Prior to this we examined the patients with great care and where necessary, laboratory tests or other further investigations took place. By the end of this procedure, we analysed the medications prescribed and on the recommendations of the program Stopp and Start, several adaptations were done. In summary, some medications increased, mainly for osteoporosis prevention and some other could be reduced, mainly the psychotropic drugs...

The psychological and neuropsychological characteristics of gifted children and adolescents are analysed, as well as the emotional and behavioural risks linked to this condition. A prospective follow-up study of N=93 highly gifted students suffering from school failure at the beginning of adolescence was implemented. They were treated with an integrated form of music psychotherapy and verbal psychotherapy in 5 separate groups. The methodology of treatment combined active musical improvisation with the writing of stories or the production of drawings under musical induction, followed by verbal elaboration in the cognitive-psychodynamic psychotherapeutic tradition...

Noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) has marked a revolution in aneuploidy screening because it allows a simple maternal blood test to detect trisomy 21, 18 and 13 in a foetus with a very high level of accuracy. After one year of NIPT utilisation with 683 samples, we analyzed retrospectively the performance of the test for 2014 : 3 positive samples (2 trisomies 21 and 1 trisomy 18) were correctly detected (100% sensitivity) and no foetal aneuploidy was missed for the pregnancies having already resulted in delivery by decembre 2014 (280 true negatif, 100% specificity)...

OBJECTIVE: To assess the risk factors the precipitates ulcerations. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In this study a group of 100 patients were selected from November 2007 till October 2008 who were coming for treatment at the Diabetes center of Cluj Napoca, Romania for treatment. 50 cases were patients with ulcerations and 50 without any ulceration. RESULTS: Most important results were: (Age, sex type, biological parameters like HDL, total cholesterol, creatinine ESR, polyneuropathy, arteriopathy, diabetic foot type, diabetes duration)...

We are a European academic group of family doctors and we propose a definition of flexibility in family medicine. A review of the literature shows that flexibility and complexity are emerging concepts in the field of family practice. The outcomes of a workshop at the WONCA-Europe congress in 2014 are discussed. The flexibility is a capability of the general practitioner to deal with complex clinical situations in a biomedical and societal changing world. Flexibility is framed by ethics. It could improve the quality of care, be useful against burnout and used in medical research...

30 years of organized ambulatory heart sport in Luxembourg Promoter of health sports. For more than 30 years both mortality and morbidity due to coronary artery disease (CAD) are significantly decreasing (> 70%) in the western world. This achievement is due to multiple interventions in the direct treatment of CAD and, especially, in fighting its risk factors: smoking, high blood pressure, hypercholesterolemia and physical inactivity. In 1984 the first ambulatory heart sport group (phase 3 of cardiac reeducation) was founded in Luxembourg City, followed in 1991 by a section in Esch/Alzette and in 2002 by a 3ème section in Ettelbrück...

BACKGROUND: Since years it was suspected that a large number and possibly inappropriate medicines were prescribed to patients > 65y. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was the inventory of polypharmacy and the inappropriate drugs prescribed to patients of 65 years and older during the year 2008 in Luxembourg. DESIGN: For this study anonymized data were used from the data base of the medical control administration of the social security CMSS ("administration du contrôle médical de la sécurité sociale")...

Mathematical models may be resorted to in an endeavor to predict the development of epidemics. The SIR model is one of the applications. Still too approximate, the use of statistics awaits more data in order to come closer to reality.

The Rorschach has been demonstrated as a suitable tool for investigating otherwise hidden psychological aspects of sex offenders: sex-related responses are more common. The present paper looks at the established tendency of some clients to minimise their overall Rorschach responding, the linking of this response restraint to particular Rorschach profiles, and the sparse but consistent literature which casts doubt on the proposition that Examiner enthusiasm will cause the minimising client to provide more responses which divulge additional information...

Hemifacial spasm (HFS) is one of the neurovascular compression syndromes caused by the compression of the facial nerve outgoing from the brainstem by an artery, a vein or both. The treatment of choice of this disorder is a microvascular decompression (MVD). As initially described, MVD is a technique based on the application of the small prostheses that are placed between a cranial nerve and an imposing vessel. Neurovascular compression syndromes have relatively high rate of incidence. Therefore, many modifications of surgical technique have been described in order to minimize the risk of complications and increase the effectiveness and permanence of the vascular transposition as the success of the MVD most of all depends on the latter...

The regular practice of physical activities has health benefits in healthy subjects (primary prevention) and in patients with non-communicable diseases (secondary prevention). This study aimed to perform a stocktaking of the physical activities programs for patients or individuals at risk in the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg. The organizations offering therapeutic physical activities (TPA) have been investigated. Eleven groups offering TPA adapted to different non-communicable diseases were characterized by their costs, instructors, participants and potential participants...