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Introduction. Pregnancy is a well-known risk factor for asymptomatic hemangiomas discovered incidentally, becoming aggressive or symptomatic, most often in the third trimester of pregnancy, related to hemodynamic and endocrine changes that occur during pregnancy. Many patients experience incomplete spontaneous remission after birth. Material and method. We report the case of a 24-year-old woman, who presented for incomplete paraplegia, pain in the spine, instability of walking of the left lower limb, bilateral plantar paresthesia, possible walking with metal support. Results and discussions. The MRI performed identifies T9 vertebral fracture-compression on pathological bone, T10-T12 vertebral hemangiomas. Conclusions. In order to obtain favorable results, the patient benefited from the support and treatment of a multidisciplinary team: neurosurgeons, imagers, physical and rehabilitation medicine doctors and physiotherapists, and represented a real challenge regarding the complexity of the factors involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Transthyretin -Related Familial Amyloid Polyneuropathy (TTR-FAP) is a rare cause of polyneuropathy, mainly in Romania, but also in other geographic area of Europe, Japan and north America. Polyneuropathies are common in neurology practice, but prevalence and incidence are not known, usually are underreported and misdiagnosis. Almost one third of polyneuropathies remain idiopathic, in spite of extensive work-out to identify etiology. Transthyretin-related familial amyloid polyneuropathy (TTR-FAP) is a multisystemic disease neurological manifestation caused by the accumulation of amyloidogenic transthyretin (TTR) protein in tissues. It is an autosomal dominant syndrome, and there are more than 100 forms of TTr associated with FAP. The disease is characterized by progressive peripheral and autonomic neuropathy, and visceral amyloid involvement like cardiac amyloidosis. Case presentation We present the case of a male, aged 48, who experienced from 18 month paresthesias of distal inferior limb and fatigue, with an important weight loss. The patient was diagnosed with mixed polyneuropathy, and he was extensively investigated. Etiology was not established. He began to feel dizziness and faints several times, and these new features lead to our final diagnosis. Conclusions Etiology of a polyneuropathy case could be very challenging for general neurologist due to a numerous causes. A large variety of signs and symptoms lead the clinician to a narrow diagnostic possibilities and still this might take a long time. Polyneuropathy and cardiac involvement make a mark for life threatening disease but potentially curable [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. Infectious and autoimmune rheumatic diseases (ARDs) are closely linked. Apart from the challenging, sometimes differential, diagnosis between these conditions, it is recognized that microbes play an important role in the pathogenesis of the latter. Material and method. We present the case of a 45-year-old female patient from our rehabilitation department, with complex pathology (infectious, neurological, rheumatological and orthopedic pathology) that began more than 15 years ago. The patient's pathological history began insidiously at theage of 30 when she was diagnosed with neurotoxoplasmosis. She received anticoagulant, antiepileptic, steroidal, antibiotic and antihelmintic treatment. After four years, the patient shows insidious onset of inflammatory pain in the large joints and in 2010 is diagnosed with seropositive rheumatoid arthritis, according to American College of Rheumatism/European League against rheumatism (ACR/EULAR) criteria with symmetric impairment of the large joints (shoulder, elbow, hip, knee, ankle). Despite the treatment with disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) received, in the following years she needed 4 arthroplasties in the large joints due to osteonecrosis. Conclusions. On clinical grounds, infections, especially chronic infections, can cause a plethora of autoimmune phenomena, thus mimicking ARDs. Therefore, the differential diagnosis between ARDs and infectious diseases is sometimes challenging as they often display similar clinical manifestations. It is highlighted that the immune system can be our friend or our foe considering that its function and dysregulation are the common denominators in autoimmune and infectious diseases. In the era of new drugs and new therapeutic strategies, safety of the patients should always be our first concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. Hypertrophic osteoarthropathy (HOA) is a syndrome characterized by periostitis of the long (tubular) bones, clubbing of the digits and arthritis. Less than 4,5% of the lung cancer patients developed hypertrophic osteoarthropathy as a paraneoplastic manifestation. Case presentation. We present a case of a 59 year old man, smoker presents for 18 months recurrent symmetric arthritis of knee. He lost 6 kilograms and he had no pulmonary symptoms. Physical examination revealed digital clubbing with watch-glass nails painless of all fingers, joint effusion of the knees. Laboratory results revealed only inflammatory syndrome and anaemia of chronic disease. The X-rays revealed periosteal appositions at the tibia, fibula and femur, mass in the left lower lobe. Computed tomography confirmed lung tumor and biopsy showed the malignant character of the tumor. Conclusion. The index of suspicion for OAH should be high in a patient with symmetrical arthritis who associates Hippocratic fingers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wide variety of waveform in EEG signals and the high non-stationary nature of many of them is one of the main difficulties to develop automatic detection system for them. In sleep stage classification a relevant transient wave is the K-complex. This paper comprehend the developing of two algorithms in order to achieve an automatic K-complex detection from EEG raw data. These algorithms are based on a time-frequency analysis and two time-frequency techniques, the Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT) and the Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT), are tested in order to find out which one is the best for our purpose, being of two wavelet functions to measure the capability of them to detect K-complex and to choose one to be employed in the algorithms. The first algorithm is based on the energy distribution of the CWT detecting the spectral component of the K-complex. The second algorithm is focused on the morphology of the K-complex / sleep spindle waveform after the CWT. Evaluating the algorithms results reveals that a false K-complex detection is as important as real K-complex detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electroencephalogram (EEG) analysis consists of locating signal structtures in time and frequency. A detection method based on the Matching Pursuit Algorithms finds the suboptimal solution of the function optimal linear expansion over a redundant waveform dictionary. This paper has put forth a method for the automatic detection and analysis of transient waves during sleep based on the matching pursuit method with a real dictionary og Gabor functions. Each wave peak is described in terms of natural parameters. In this context, there have been confirmed several literature hypotheses regarding the spatial, temporal, and frequency distribution of transient waves during sleep, and their relationships with slow wave brain activity. Mastery and expertise in clinical EEG interpretation is one of the most desirable disgnostic clinical skills in interpreting seizures, epilepsy, sleep disorder, biomarkers for early disgnosis of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, and other neurocognitive studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]