The Self-Administered Alcoholism Screening Test was completed by physicians attending an annual continuing medical education meeting. Of the responding physicians, 12% were identified as abstainers, 81% were classified as not alcohol-dependent drinkers, 5% were classified as possibly alcoholic, and 2% were classified as probably alcoholic. These results were similar to ...

Psychotropic medications are sometimes part of the combination of well-known techniques used to treat alcoholism. Some alcoholics present with complex problems, such as schizophrenia, that require specific medications, but in primary alcoholism, almost any psychiatric symptom that develops usually abates rapidly after abstinence. The author first reviews the assets and ...

Sixteen habitual drunken offenders agreed to take disulfiram in liquid form under supervision as a condition of a probation order. They knew that failure to take medication, as with failure to observe any other condition of probation, could result in their being returned to court. Three defaulted but only two ...

In a sample of 1,289 alcoholics from four clinical sites, the overall mortality rate after five to eight years of observation was 22.0 per cent, 3.1 times the expected rate. Patients from the medical and surgical services of a general hospital suffered 4.0 times the rate of expected mortality and ...

Acceptance by the client of the label "alcoholic" is viewed by many practitioners as a prerequisite to alcohol abuse recovery. This study demonstrates, however, that the label is a highly stigmatized term associated with the skid row habitué. The 1956 American Medical Association acceptance of alcoholism as within the "purview ...

Alcoholic liver disease continues to be an important cause of morbidity and mortality, and the hypermetabolic hypothesis continues to be an attractive area for research. However, the current state of knowledge does not allow unequivocal acceptance or rejection of the role of thyroid hormone and antithyroid medication in alcoholic hepatitis. ...

In Malmö, a southern Swedish city of about 230,000 inhabitants, an institute of preventive medicine within the medical department of Malmö General Hospital has been in operation since 1975. It is directed against the major middle-aged internal medical health risks and complications such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, and alcohol ...

One thousand one hundred eighty men in a medical outpatient clinic were screened as to the presence of impotence. Four hundred one men (34%) were impotent, and of those, 188 (47%) chose to be examined for their problem. After a comprehensive evaluation the following diagnoses were obtained: medication effect, 25%; ...

Members of the American Medical Society on Alcoholism were studied to shed light on medical manpower needs in the alcoholism field. Findings were compared to AMA and federal survey data for all American physicians. AMSA respondents were broadly distributed among specialties: primarily psychiatrists, internists, and family practitioners. They were evenly ...

The files of the Casualty Branch of the Military Personnel Center, Europe, Seventh Medical Command, and of the U.S. Army's Tenth Medical Lab were used to examine the epidemiology of "overdose" deaths of U.S. Army soldiers in Europe during the calendar years 1978 and 1979. A total of 91 cases ...

A questionnaire combining items on alcohol consumption with the four CAGE questions was used by 27 housemen to detect abnormal drinking among 520 patients of all specialties admitted to a general hospital. 15.6--23.2% of patients were classified as abnormal drinkers with the largest proportions occurring among the emergency surgical, orthopaedic, ...

To determine whether medical costs for alcoholics are higher than those for non-alcoholics, inpatient and outpatient costs for medical services of 191 alcoholics with 191 non-alcoholic matched controls were compared over four years. Results confirm that alcoholics are higher-cost users of medical services than non-alcoholics. (Am J Public Health 1982; ...

One thousand one hundred and eighty-seven women were interviewed concerning their use of psychotropic medication, health and visits to physicians, use of tobacco and alcohol, and life-style and general satisfaction. Subjects were categorized as high, moderate, and non-consumers of psychotropes; respectively, 5.5%, 22.6%, and 71.9% of the sample. High drug ...

In 1979 and 1980, outdoor artificial ponds were treated with 14C-permethrin (labelled at either the cyclopropyl or methylene position) at 0.028 kg/ha (15 ug/L). Uptake of permethrin by duckweed and hydrosoil was monitored by direct combustion, TLC-autoradiography, HPLC, and liquid scintillation counting. Rapid loss of permethrin from the water coincided ...

Admission rates to a medical detoxification ward of a general hospital were examined for periods during a beer and a liquor strike and equivalent length periods before and after each strike. They were also compared to analogous periods during a non-strike year. Results indicated that admissions were lowered during the ...

The discovery of a novel metalloporphyrin pool in etiolated cucumber cotyledons and in dark-grown Euglena gracilis is described. The novel pool exhibited the chromatographic properties of a fully esterified metalloporphyrin, devoid of free carboxylic groups, and the spectrophotometric and spectrofluorometric properties of a magnesium protoporphyrin. Demetalation and hydrolysis indicated that ...

Arizona hinshawii, a gram-negative enteric pathogen, causes serious infections in fowl, reptiles, and other animals. In humans, gastroenteritis, enteric fever, septicemia, and localized infections due to Arizona have occurred. There are no previous reports of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis secondary to Arizona, however. We report here a case of spontaneous bacterial ...

Despite awareness of the wide variety of clinical and laboratory abnormalities associated with alcohol abuse, drinking problems often remain undetected in hospital and in general medical practice. The diagnosis of alcohol abuse has been emphasized repeatedly in the literature but far less attention has been paid to indicators that would ...

In order to determine factors that influenced their recovery from alcoholism, 45 men who attended a liver clinic were studied, employing a detailed questionnaire. All had shown classic signs of cirrhosis, and 84 percent were in frank hepatic failure at the time of hospitalization. In general, they were married, blue-collar ...

The Avoidance of the Ontological Confrontation of Loneliness Scale was used to assist the psychometric documentation of choice of an avoidance versus confrontation strategy to the issue of loneliness. Data were obtained from 118 males and 183 females (median age approximately 30 yr.) selected from both community and university locations ...

4-methylpyrazole (4-MP), an inhibitor of alcohol dehydrogenase, rapidly abolished the accumulation of acetaldehyde following alcohol ingestion both in volunteers pretreated with the Antabuse analog calcium carbimide and in an antabuse-treated alcoholic. 4-MP also attenuated other typical symptoms, including facial flushing and tachycardia, thus suggesting its usefulness in the acute treatment ...

A computer-aided Alcoholism Diagnostic ALGOrithm (ADALGO) based on the NCA criteria for the diagnosis of alcoholism is applied in 233 obstetric and gynecologic patients. Alcoholism symptoms in the patients were intensively investigated by means of a 10-page, self-administered questionnaire, a 45-minute interview, and a medical record review. Alcoholism diagnoses based ...

The association of alcohol with unnatural death, especially automobile accidents, is widely accepted. Unfortunately, national statistics often do not include information from medical examiners, which can be a significant contribution. This report summarizes the experience of the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator during the period 1974-76. Thirty-nine per ...

The Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) purports to be a measure of field articulation. The extent to which the GEFT measures apsects of personality and cognitive impairment was explored. Eighty-one male alcoholics, mean age of 42.9, receiving treatment for alcoholism at the Seattle VA Medical Center were administered the GEFT, ...

Although myasthenia gravis (MG) is frequently mentioned in standard textbooks and journal articles as a rare cause for pulmonary hypertension and right heart failure, no case can actually be found in the literature. The case described in this report is the first documented case of chronically decompensated MG manifesting itself ...

Alcoholism in a major health problem which demands a place in the curriculum of medical schools. Yet many schools find there is more to teach than there is time available, especially since students now elect a significant portion of their educational experiences. The author reviews the literature on physicians' attitudes ...

Using the Munich Alcoholism Test, this study examined the prevalence and interrelationships of medical and sociobehavioral disorders in a nonhospitalized sample of 106 males who had been referred to a medical officer for "suspected" problems related to drinking. A further objective was to evaluate measurement properties of the Munich Alcoholism ...

Traumatic neurosis from Viet Nam combat or other sources includes many symptoms that can be effectively self-medicated with alcohol, at least initially. These symptoms include chronic anxiety and restlessness, insomnia, and recurrent frightening dreams. Repeated self-medication with alcohol results in tolerance and a need to increase the amount consumed. Attempts ...

This regulation establishes criteria and procedures for payment for new and used durable medical equipment for beneficiaries under Part B (Supplementary Medical Insurance) of the Medicare program. It implements Section 16 of the Medicare-Medicaid Anti-Fraud and Abuse Amendments of 1977 (P.L. 95-142). Section 16 provides of purchase of durable medical ...

Since 1972 we have used the Self-Administered Alcoholism Screening Test (SAAST) in impatient alcoholics and their spouses and in patients from a general medical population. The SAAST, a 35-item test with a yes/no format, was administered to 1,002 consecutive Mayo Clinic patients who generally were not acutely ill and were ...

Hypophosphatemia was found in 11 of 434 (2.5%) male patients admitted to an alcohol treatment program and 21 of 69 (30.4%) male alcoholic patients admitted to the medical wards. In contrast, hyperphosphatemia was found in 43 of 434 (9.9%) treatment program alcoholics, and only one of 69 (1.4%) medical-ward alcoholics. ...

Two groups of medically comparable patients at the Pelgrim Centre were used to study the use of tiapridal in alcoholic detoxication. The first group of nearly 450 patients were treated with traditional medication between 1973 and mid-1976, and second group of some 540 subjects displaying somato-dependency were treated with tiapridal ...

Alcoholic patients admitted to medical wards (n=63) and to an alcoholism treatment program (n=412), respectively, were differentiated biochemically and hematologically from each other, as well as from a group of nonalcoholic hospitalized controls (n=40). A quadratic multiple discriminant analysis of blood chemistry tests classified 100% of medical ward alcoholics as ...

A new method using a semiconductor strain guage is described for the measurement of the acoustic power output of ultrasonic medical therapy and other probe heads. The acoustic power output of the probe heads is found to be linearly related to the calibrated electrical output of the strain gauge transducer ...

Family physicians need to have an increased awareness of the medical needs of pilots. A close, trusting relationship is essential. Special consideration must be given when prescribing medications. Hypoxia is a special problem for pilots with cardiovascular and/or respiratory diseases. Several medical problems may occur because of rapid changes in ...

A scale, Avoidance of the Ontological Confrontation of Loneliness, was developed to assist the psychometric recorded documentation of choice of avoidance versus confrontation strategy to the issue of loneliness. Analysis showed low scores (confronters) reported increased use of soft drugs and were absent from employment more often than medium or ...

Clinical correlates of the PRF Andro were examined in an alcoholic population. Measures included the Sensation Seeking Scale, Eysenck Personality Inventory, Symptom checklist--90, the Cornell Medical Index and Rotter's Locus of Control. Of 28 possible relationships, only five measures were found to be weakly associated with androgynous subtypes. Androgynous subtypes ...

A man is the sum of all the moments of his life, and his attitudes are the product of repeated experience. A physician's attitude toward alcoholics is a product of all of his alcohol-related experiences, including family and societal feelings assimilated in childhood and lessons, impressions, and experiences acquired during ...

The opportunity to realistically equip the ventilator-dependent tetraplegic to return to his community can be met by a concerned team in specialised spinal cord injury centres. Proper equipment, independent electric wheelchair mobility and family training, encourages acceptance of the ventilator-dependent quadriplegic and increases his life-style options. Ideally, the initial 6-month ...

Ethyl alcohol and its lethal effects were present either in the victim or in the environment, including persons responsible for a given death, in 53% of the cases autopsied during a six-month period at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in the District of Columbia. The results of this ...

Research on the sugar metabolism of the crystalline lens, past and preent, is reviewed. The chief energy source in the lens is the Embden-Meyerhof pathway; respiration and oxidative phosphorylation become more important as the lens ages. The function of the alpha-glycerophosphate cycle is not fully understood. The mechanisms involved in ...

A medical audit for acute alcoholism was done in a large private general hospital where the cases are admitted to and treated on the general medical service. Another medical audit was done for chronic alcoholism for patients admitted to an alcoholism rehabilitation unit in a large general hospital in a ...

Appropriate medical treatment of alcoholics often falls between the clinical specialties of psychiatry, internal medicine, toxicology, and neurology. All physicians need to have a high index of suspicion for alcoholism, since the diagnosis of alcohol dependence is frequently overlooked. Especially when alcoholics are self-referred to nonmedical agencies, their medical complications ...

Male and female alcoholics who were participating in an in-patient rehabilitation program were given the Rotter internal-external control scale in order to determine whether there were differences between those who leave against medical advice vs. those who complete treatment. It was anticipated that AMA patients would have significantly higher scores ...

A common problem in treating alcoholics is the high dropout rate. Many studies have identified individual factors associated with dropout, eg, poor motivation and previous dropout. We believe the present study reports the first major effort to use multivariate analyses to predict dropout in a large (792), one-year follow-up study ...

Those over 65 in our society are a new lost generation. A homeostasis which has been established for 50 years is traumatically unbalanced, causing an endemic morbidity in senior citizens. This is reflected by the increased utilization of medical services and medications. Only an individual program for retirement will result ...

The medicolegal medical toxicologist is described: What they do, what toxicology is, how the toxicologist moves in a world of regulations, chemicals, differential diagnosis, and treatment of poisoning; his or her knowledge as an expert witness in evaluation of serious adverse drug reactions, medical malpractice, and poisoning cases; and the ...

A "history" of alcoholism may be 2 mo old or 20 yr ago. No two individuals are completely alike, and it would be nearly impossible to write a satisfactory regulation that could define when an individual is medically safe to return to flying. Individual consideration would seem to be the ...

Current medical practice, vis-à-vis chemical dependency, was assessed in a university hospital setting. Findings indicate that the majority of physicians and nurses at this facility (1) did not take adequate alcohol and drug use histories, (2) did not identify chemical dependency as a medical problem even when they knew dependency ...

The progress towards a coherent policy of international standardisation of electrical equipment used in medical practice is reviewed against the background to existing legislation in Western Europe. The work of the International Electrotechnical Commission and the implications of the EEC in this context are discussed, as well as the general ...