Posted by Alan F. Bachrach, M.D. on October 28, 2001 at 19:03:45:
In Reply to: Re: Neurological complications posted by Ellen on October 28, 2001 at 11:24:41:
Pauline and Ellen,
My practice is pretty much limited to adults, though I do see a few teens with migraine or seizures if their insurance plans don't allow them to see one of the pediatric neurologists in town.
Ellen, I noted the article you cited was included in this week's Children With Diabetes e mail. I am also a Ph.D. psychologist and have been attending the National Academy of Neuropsychogy meetings for several years (meets this coming week in San Francisco, so I'll be away for a few days). I'm pretty conservative about drawing conclusions from these studies. The reliability and validity of neuropsychological tests are limited and when someone makes the statement that they have found "subtle" changes as evidence of focal brain dysfunction, I am always pretty dubious. Common sense tells us that we want to avoid frequent severe hypoglycemia and that it could potentially cause cerebral damage. The other side of the coin is that we want to avoid the long term complications associated with hyperglycemia and that usually leads to an increased frequency of hypoglycemic episodes. What's a mother (or father) to do? The answer: We just do the best we can to avoid both extremes. Research findings such as these wouldn't lead me to change anything I do in the management of my children and is P*&&^% me off to think that funding was directed toward such a study when it might have been used for cure research.
Alan