News on treatment: from antiepileptics in childhood absence epilepsy to improvement of falls in Parkinson's disease by deep brain stimulation.

摘要

Over the last 10 years, an important objective of the Journal Club has been the presentation and discussion of recent treatment trials because this is what really counts for our patients. In this month's Journal Club, four articles will be presented, in which different methods were used to treat different types of neurological disorders. The first article-published in the New England Journal of Medicine-deals with a comparison of the effectiveness of ethosuximide, valproic acid and lamo-trigine- in the treatment of childhood absence epilepsy, leading to the following title of the accompanying editorial: "Ethosuximide in childhood absence epilepsy-Older and better". The second article focuses on the toxicity of 4-aminopyridine with unintentional overdose in four patients with multiple sclerosis, which was caused by the wrong preparation by the pharmacists. This article was chosen because CR forms of 4-aminopyridine and 3,4-diaminopyridine have become available in the last month. In the third study, it was shown that intensive coordinative training improves motor performance in degenerative cerebellar disease. In the final study, it was demonstrated that unilateral pedunculopontine stimulation may be effective in preventing falls in patients with advanced Parkinson's disease.