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There is a severe lack of aphasia screening tools for bedside use in Chinese. A number of aphasia assessment tools have recently been developed abroad, but some of these scales were not suitable for patients with acute stroke. The Language Screening Test (which includes two parallel versions [a/b]) in French has been proven to be an effective and time-saving aphasia screening scale for early-stage stroke patients. Therefore, we worked out a Chinese version of the LAST taking into consideration Chinese language and culture. Two preliminary parallel versions (a/b) were tested on 154 patients with stroke at acute phase and 107 patients with stroke at non-acute phase, with the Western Aphasia Battery serving as a gold standard. The equivalence between the two parallel versions and the reliability/validity of each version were assessed. The median time to complete one preliminary Chinese version (each had some item redundancy) was 98 seconds. Two final parallel versions were established after adjustment/elimination of the redundant items and were found to be equivalent (intra-class correlation coefficient: 0.991). Internal consistency is(Cronbach α for each version [a/b] was 0.956 and 0.965, respectively) good. Internal validity was fine: (a) no floor or ceiling effect/item redundancy; (b) construct validity revealed a 1-dimension structure, just like the French version. The higher educated subjects scored higher than their lower educated counterparts (p<0.01). The external validity: at the optimum cut-off point where the score of version a/b <14 in higher educated group(<13 in lower): the specificity of each version was 0.878/0.902(1/1 in lower) and sensitivity was 0.972/0.944(0.944/0.944 in lower). Inter-rater equivalence (intra-class correlation coefficient) was 1. The Chinese version of the Language Screening Test was proved to be an efficient and time-saving bedside aphasia screening tool for stroke patients at acute phase and can be used by an average medical physician.

Systematic transfer of any woman presenting a high risk of delivery before 33 weeks of amenorrhea, for birth within a Perinatology department which was 5 advocated since 1985 (especially at 31 and 32 weeks of amenorrhea) in order to minimize the neurological consequences of the haemodynamic disorders induced by the transfer of these premature babies, has permitted to increase to 40 live newborns without any severe sequelae. This improved management, noticed in three departments (121 PNB in 1988, or a 73 p. cent progression in 4 years), must now take place as early as the 25th week and before the stage of imminent birth, in order for the couple mother-fetus to take advantage, in the same location, of physicians (obstetricians and pediatricians) and technical means suitable for this rare and severe pathology that is prematurity.

This work is about organic micropollution of waters sampled at the flowing in and out of three treatment stations. Micropollutants are obtained by chloroformic extraction. It is shown that the extracts have biological effects which can be measured by in vitro and in vivo assays. The treatments reduce the total amount of extractible substances but they induce modifications in their chemical composition and their biological activity. These observations allow to precise how the problem of an eventual health effect of organic micropollution could be approached.