Full Description
The child is neither an adult miniature nor an immature human being: at each age, it expresses specific abilities that optimize adaptation to its environment and development of new acquisitions. Diseases in children cover all specialties encountered in adulthood, and neurology involves a particularly large area, ranging from the brain to the striated muscle, the generation and functioning of which require half the genes of the whole genome and a majority of mitochondrial ones. Human being nervous system is sensitive to prenatal aggression, is particularly immature at birth and development may be affected by a whole range of age-dependent disorders distinct from those that occur in adults. Even diseases more often encountered in adulthood than childhood may have specific expression in the developing nervous system. The course of chronic neurological diseases beginning before adolescence remains distinct from that of adult pathology - not only from the cognitive but also motor perspective, right into adulthood, and a whole area is developing for adult neurologists to care for these children with persisting neurological diseases when they become adults.
Just as pediatric neurology evolved as an identified specialty as the volume and complexity of data became too much for the general pediatician or the adult neurologist to master, the discipline has now continued to evolve into so many subspecialties, such as epilepsy, neuromuscular disease, stroke, malformations, neonatal neurology, metabolic diseases, etc., that the general pediatric neurologist no longer can reasonably possess in-depth expertise in all areas, particularly in dealing with complex cases. Subspecialty expertise thus is provided to some trainees through fellowship programmes following a general pediatric neurology residency and many of these fellowships include training in research.
Since the infectious context, the genetic background and medical practice vary throughout the world, this diversity needs to be represented in a pediatric neurology textbook. Taken together, and although brain malformations (H. Sarnat & P. Curatolo, 2007) and oncology (W. Grisold & R. Soffietti) are covered in detail in other volumes of the same series and therefore only briefly addressed here, these considerations justify the number of volumes, and the number of authors who contributed from all over the world. Experts in the different subspecialties also contributed to design the general framework and contents of the book. Special emphasis is given to the developmental aspect, and normal development is reminded whenever needed - brain, muscle and the immune system. The course of chronic diseases into adulthood and ethical issues specific to the developing nervous system are also addressed.
Contents
SECTION 7 Non epileptic paroxysmal disorders and respiratory disorders Alternating hemiplegia of childhood; Headache in Pediatric Practice; Paediatric narcolepsy: clinical and therapeutical approaches; Paroxysmal movement disorders and episodic ataxias; Tourette syndrome and other tic disorders of childhood; Non-epileptic paroxysmal sleep disorders; Syncopes and other paroxysmal events; Sudden infant death syndrome: An update and new perspectives of etiology; Psychogenic non epileptic seizures SECTION 8 Conversion disorders Conversion disorder SECTION 9 Trauma Traumatic brain injury; Non accidental head injury; Cognitive and psychopathological sequelae of pediatric traumatic brain injury; Obstetrical brachial plexus palsy SECTION 10 Tumors Central nervous system tumors; Pediatric spinal tumors; Neurocognitive effects of CNS tumours SECTION 11 Myelopathy Spinal cord malformations; Acute myelopathy - tumoral or traumatic spinal cord compression; Inflammatory, vascular and infectious myelopathies in children SECTION 12 Vascular disorders Normal and abnormal cerebrovascular development: gene-environment interactions during early life with later life consequences; Vascular malformations of the brain; Cerebrovascular disorders in childhood; Childhood central nervous system (CNS) vasculitis; Outcome and rehabilitation after childhood stroke SECTION 13 Inflammatory and infectious diseases Brain development and the immune system: an introduction to inflammatory and infectious diseases of the child's brain; Mendelian predisposition to herpes simplex encephalitis; Congenital toxoplasmosis; Virus-induced lesions and the fœtal brain: examples of the transmission of HIV-1 and CMV from mother to offspring; Neonatal bacterial meningitis; Infantile and childhood bacterial meningitis; Brain abscess; Tuberculous meningitis; Parasitic disorders; Aseptic meningitis; Acute polyradiculoneuritis: Guillain-Barré syndrome Germany); Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy; Acute viral encephalitis; Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis and chronic viral encephalitis; Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease; Parainfectious meningo-encephalo-radiculo-myelitis (cat scratch disease, lyme borreliosis, brucellosis, botulism, legionellosis, pertussis, mycoplasma); Opsoclonus-myoclonus syndrome; Ataxia; Neurological expression of genetic immunodeficiencies and of opportunistic infections; Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis in children: the disorder, its diagnosis, and treatment; Immune mediated extrapyramidal movement disorders, including Sydenham's chorea; Systemic inflammatory and autoimmune disorders; Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis; Pediatric multiple sclerosis; Effect of autoimmune diseases on cognitive function; The neuropsychology of the Klüver Bucy syndrome in children
