Treating attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder beyond symptom control alone in children and adolescents: a review of the potential benefits of long-acting stimulants

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), one of the most common neuropsychiatric conditions of childhood, often has a chronic course and persists into adulthood in many individuals. ADHD may have a clinically important impact on health-related quality of life in children, a significant impact on parents’ emotional health and interfere with family activities/cohesion. To date, the main targets of ADHD treatment have focused on reducing the severity of symptoms during the school day and improving academic performance. However, the treatment of ADHD should reach beyond symptom control to address the issues of social competencies and improvement of health-related quality of life from the perspectives of individuals with ADHD and their families, to support them in reaching their full developmental potential. Methylphenidate (MPH) is recognised as the first-line choice of pharmacotherapy for ADHD in children and adolescents. This paper focuses on the importance and benefits to child development of ADHD symptom control beyond the school day only, i.e. extending into late afternoon and evening and uses the example of an extended-release MPH formulation (OROS® MPH) to demonstrate the potential benefits of active full day coverage (12 h) with a single daily dose. Concerns of long-term stimulant treatment are also discussed

Characteristics of falling in patients with stroke

OBJECTIVE—To identify the risk factors for falling after stroke, to establish the relation with lesion localisation, and to evaluate the incidence of falling.
METHODS—The falling history and the mood of 293 patients with stroke were investigated by a standard questionnaire. Other information (time since stroke, risk factors, and CT) about patients was obtained from their hospital records.
RESULTS—Increasing age, depression, and heart disease were significant risk factors for falling (heart disease had a negative influence). A right hemispheric infarct was significantly more common among the falling group.
CONCLUSION—This study suggests clues for possible modifications of the management of patients with stroke during the recovery period.


Understanding the mechanism of large-scale template elimination during calcination of Mcm-41

International audienceAn in-depth study of the thermal detemplation of the MCM-41 was carried out in a designed setup running with a high catalyst loading. Mapping the temperature along the catalyst bed during detemplation provides an understanding of the heat transfer phenomena involved under (an)aerobic conditions. Comparison between the results obtained at low (TG/DTA study) and high sample loadings (fixed-bed reactor) suggest that oxygen presence modifies the detemplation mechanism and high flows increase the local temperature in the bed due to the exothermic nature of hydrocarbon oxidation. Thermal cracking products detected during calcination may be considered a benchmark to deduce the local conditions in the catalyst bed. Despite the differences in detemplation processes, both environments lead to solids with similar structural properties. The use of advanced analytical techniques, such as 2D GC, led to the proposal of a detailed reaction scheme for the detemplation step

Flow behaviour of zeolite powders at high process temperatures

Zeolite powders are an active ingredient for various applications and processing condition could affect powder flow behaviour. One of the important process conditions that changes during the manufacturing process is temperature. Temperature can change the particle properties affecting the powder flow properties and, therefore, the latter need to be tested at the process conditions. The flow properties of two types of zeolite powders, Z302 and T804, were evaluated at temperatures of 150, 300, and 500 ◦C in the range of 1–8 KPa of normal consolidation stresses by an Anton Paar shear cell. The two materials show a very different flowability behaviour, even at the lowest temperature tested. The temperature appears much more significant effect on the T804 zeolite at 500 ◦C and the flow function falls into the cohesive range while the Z302 zeolite flow function changes only for large values of consolidation stresses, by showing a flow function falling entirely within the very cohesive range. To find an explanation for understanding such a different behaviour of these two materials at changing temperature and consolidation stress, a theoretical framework was developed to take into account the different particle size distributions of the two powders. The resulting analysis, which is specific to the system taken into account, supports the goodness of the general approach that an adequate estimate of the average material fabric provides averaged estimates of contact forces that are able to explain the different behaviours of temperature and consolidation changes shown by powders. An original analysis of flowability based on the calculation of a structural length is also introduced to account for different powder bulk densitie