The management of dyspepsia has been radically altered by the discovery of the role of Helicobacter pylori and the advent of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs). The use of PPIs alone as antisecretory agents and as part of triple therapy regimens for H. pylori eradication accounts for a significant...

Medically intractable epilepsy (MIE) is a chronic disabling condition that primarily affects the young. Inadequately treated, it can produce life-long disability associated with high rates of social isolation, unemployment, depression, suicide and premature mortality. Recent advances in...

Clinical practice guidelines have gradually become a normal part of daily life for many clinicians. In order to provide good support for practitioners and patients in their decisions on appropriate care, the practice guidelines should be of high quality, i.e. developed by a credible...

Spending on direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) in the US rapidly increased from $US150 million in 1992 to $US1.2 billion in 1998 (to the end of November). Despite this level of expenditure, there is no literature on how DTCA affects patients' level of knowledge about medications, physician...

Care for older people with dementia living in the community involves not only a physician and the patient, but also a family member as the `primary caregiver'. This caregiver communicates medical information from the physician to the patient (screening this information as necessary), ensures...

Alzheimer's disease is a common disorder in the elderly, and a cure is not currently available. This article summarises the intervention studies that have been done in Alzheimer's disease research and discusses assessment tools and outcome measures used in these studies. Current approaches are...

As the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) moves towards earlier and more consistently maintained therapy, often with highly toxic medications, the importance of assessing patients' health-related quality of life (HR-QOL) is of increasing concern to healthcare providers, insurers and...

Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a chronic disorder characterised by fatigue, shortness of breath and congestion. Treatment is designed to relieve symptoms, halt or delay progression of the disease, prolong life and, ultimately, improve quality of life. The purpose of this paper is to identify...

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and the leading source of healthcare expenditure in the US and most other industrialised countries. Cholesterol lowering by pharmacological means prevents atherosclerotic plaque progression and has been shown to reduce both fatal and nonfatal...

Advanced breast cancer has a poor prognosis (median duration of survival about 2 years); thus, treatment options are largely palliative. Recent studies with the taxoids docetaxel and paclitaxel suggest that these agents are effective second-line therapy in patients with metastatic breast cancer....