[The majority of patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease are treated at specialized movement disorder centers. Currently, there is no clear consensus on how to define the stages of Parkinson’s disease; the proportion of Parkinson’s patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease, the referral process, and the clinical features used to characterize advanced Parkinson’s disease are not well delineated. The primary objective of this observational study was to evaluate the proportion of Parkinson’s patients identified as advanced patients according to physician’s judgment in all participating movement disorder centers across the study. Here we evaluate the Hungarian subset of the participating patients. The study was conducted in a cross-sectional, non-interventional, multi-country, multi-center format in 18 countries. Data were collected during a single patient visit. Current Parkinson’s disease status was assessed with Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) parts II, III, IV, and V (modified Hoehn and Yahr staging). Non-motor symptoms were assessed using the PD Non-motor Symptoms Scale (NMSS); quality of life was assessed with the PD 8-item Quality-of-Life Questionnaire (PDQ-8). Parkinson’s disease was classified as advanced versus non-advanced based on physician assessment and on questions developed by the Delphi method. Overall, 2627 patients with Parkinson’s disease from 126 sites were documented. In Hungary, 100 patients with Parkinson’s disease were documented in four movement disorder centers, and, according to the physician assessment, 50% of these patients had advanced Parkinson’s disease. Their mean scores showed significantly higher impairment in those with, versus without advanced Parkinson’s disease: UPDRS II (14.1 vs. 9.2), UPDRS IV Q32 (1.1 vs. 0.0) and Q39 (1.1 vs. 0.5), UPDRS V (2.8 vs. 2.0) and PDQ-8 (29.1 vs. 18.9). Physicians in Hungarian movement disorder centers assessed that half of the Parkinson’s patients had advanced disease, with worse motor and non-motor symptom severity and worse QoL than those without advanced Parkinson’s disease. Despite being classified as eligible for invasive/device-aided treatment, that treatment had not been initiated in 25% of these patients.]

[Introduction - The purpose of our study was to find out whether the Hungarian adaptation of the RBANS (Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status), a brief neurocognitive screening test, is appropriate for the differentation of healthy and non-healthy subject groups, or for the detection of differences between the cognitive performance of patient groups. Patients and method - The test battery was administrated to 38 healthy subjects, 69 schizophrenic patients, and 18 patients suffering from dementia (10 probable Alzheimer-type and eight vascular dementia). Results - There was a significant decrease of performance in all patient groups compared to the healthy group. In the schizophrenic group, the test indicated a deterioration of functioning in all cognitive areas. The patient group with Alzheimer-type dementia performed only slightly better than the schizophrenic group, because the fall of performance was not significant only one of the cognitive areas (in the visuo-spatial tasks) when compared to the healthy group. There was no difference between the performance of patients with vascular dementia and that of healthy subjects in direct memory, verbal and visuo-spatial tasks. The test results indicated an even deterioration of cognitive areas in patients with Alzheimer-type dementia. As for the vascular dementia group, the most vulnerable area proved to be that of attention, while their verbal functions were relatively spared. The deterioration in other cognitive functions shown by schizophrenic subjects was more moderate, but still significant. A comparison of the RBANS scores of the schizophrenic patients in our study and the result of an American study was also carried out. The global indeces showed no difference; only the pattern of the sub-scales was a little different. Conclusion - The Hungarian version of the RBANS seems appropriate for the differentiation of healthy and deteriorated cognitive performance in a Hungarian patient population.]

[Introduction - It is essential to identify the genetic factors of epilepsy in the every day clinical practice for several reasons. The proof of the genetically defined sub-clusters existing inside the epileptic disease group is significant in diagnoses and therapy. The risk of inheriting epilepsy could influence the patient’s family planning which has a great impact on their quality of life. The aim of the study - To analyse clinical data obtained from patients examined after their first provoked or unprovoked seizure and the observation of the recurrence of seizures. To compare the data obtained with the familial occurrence of epilepsy. Population and methods - Data was obtained from a questionnaire developed by the authors. The epileptic patients with positive familial data underwent to an analysis of their family tree. Results - Of 120 persons who were examined the prevalence of epilepsy in their family was 20.4%. This corresponds to the familial prevalence of generalised epilepsy according to the published clinical data. The recurrence of seizures was experienced by 32% of the patients with a family background affected by epilepsy. The risk of reoccurring seizures was the highest if the familial epilepsy manifested itself in the same generation (among brothers or sisters) and if we were able to register epileptiform activity on the interictal EEG. According to our clinical data the genetic set up can play a role also in the provoked first epileptic seizure. The incidence of familial epilepsy was found high (12.72%) in the presence of incidental epileptic seizures when the EEG was free of epileptiform alterations. Conclusion - 1. The genetic basis for the first epileptic seizure in the population of young adults approaches the data known in idiopathic generalised epilepsy irrespective of the fact whether it was related to the seizure provoking factors or not. 2. The risk of seizure reactivation was higher in non-provoked seizures then at the incidental epileptic symptoms. Seizure reactivation had to be taken into consideration when epileptiform patterns appeared on the patient's EEG and/or epileptic symptoms were experienced by the patient's brother or sister. The probability of reoccurring seizures was lower if the epileptic seizures manifested in parents or earlier generations.]