Flavia Baccari

Istituto Scienze Neurologiche Bologna IRCCS ISNB · UOSI Epidemiologia e Statistica

Narcolepsy type 1 (NT1) is a chronic neurological disorder characterized by symptoms such as excessive daytime sleepiness, sudden sleep episodes, disrupted nocturnal sleep, cataplexy, sleep paralysis, and hypnagogic hallucinations, which significantly impact the overall well-being and quality of life of individuals. While psychological factors have...

Background: This work aimed to study the Village Test (VT) in a group of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and compare the results with those of a group of patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and controls. Methods: A total of 50 patients with AD, 28 patients with MCI, and 38 controls were evaluated. All participants underwent the VT...

Background: Epileptic encephalopathies (EE) are characterized by severe drug-resistant seizures, early onset, and unfavorable developmental outcomes. This article discusses the use of intravenous methylprednisolone (IVMP) pulse therapy in pediatric patients with EE to evaluate its efficacy and tolerability. Methods: This is a retrospective study fr...

Background: epileptic encephalopathies (EE) are characterized by severe drug-resistant seizures, early-onset, and unfavorable developmental outcome. We describe a cohort of pediatric patients with EE who underwent intravenous methylprednisolone (IVMP) pulse therapy to examine its efficacy/tolerability. Methods: This is a retrospective study from 20...

Background: epileptic encephalopathies (EE) are characterized by severe drug-resistant seizures, early-onset, and unfavorable developmental outcome. We describe a cohort of pediatric patients with EE who underwent intravenous methylprednisolone (IVMP) pulse therapy to examine its efficacy/tolerability. Methods: This is a retrospective study from 20...

Background Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system requiring complex diagnostic and therapeutic management. Treatment with Disease Modifying Drugs (DMDs) is aimed at reducing relapse rate and disease disability. Few real-world, population-based data are available on the impact of adherence on relapse...

Introduction Health administrative databases are widely used for the estimation of the prevalence of Parkinson's Disease (PD). Few in general, and none used in Italy, have been validated by testing their diagnostic accuracy. The primary objective was to validate two algorithms for the identification of persons with PD using clinical diagnosis as th...

Objective: In Alzheimer's disease (AD), the presence of circadian dysfunction is well-known and may occur early in the disease course. The melanopsin retinal ganglion cell (mRGC) system may play a relevant role in contributing to circadian dysfunction. In this study, we aimed at evaluating, through a multimodal approach, the mRGC system in AD at a...

Background Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) represent an effective cancer immunotherapy yet are associated with immune-related adverse events (irAEs). The aim of this study was to characterize irAEs involving the peripheral nervous system (PNS-irAEs) in a real-world cohort of ICI-treated patients. Methods Cancer patients treated with ICIs betwe...

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a clinically heterogeneous class of neurodevelopmental conditions with a strong, albeit complex, genetic basis. The genetic architecture of ASD includes different genetic models, from monogenic transmission at one end, to polygenic risk given by thousands of common variants with small effects at the other end. The...

Objective: To study the evolution of the Tree Drawing Test (TDT) in a group of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. Methods: A total of 33 AD patients were consecutively evaluated by Mini Mental State Evaluation (MMSE) and TDT. The evolution of the TDT parameters, trunk-to-crown (TC) and space occupation (SO) index, were analyzed. Results: The m...

Lo studio della mobilità dei pazienti fra le Regioni italiane costituisce, oltre che uno strumento per comprendere i flussi migratori sanitari e per capire, quindi, la propensione dei cittadini ai servizi offerti dal SSN, un dispositivo di programmazione per le specifiche politiche sanitarie territoriali. L'Istituto delle Scienze Neurologiche di Bo...

Background: The patterns of long term risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, hospitalization for COVID-19 and related death are uncertain in people with Parkinson's disease (PD) or parkinsonism (PS). The aim of the study was to quantify these risks compared to a control population cohort, during the period March 2020-May 2021, in Bologna, northern Italy....

Objective Data on COVID‐19 outcomes in persons with epilepsy (PWE) are scarce and inconclusive. We aimed to study the risk of hospitalization and death for COVID‐19 in a large cohort of PWE from March 1, 2020 to October 31, 2021. Methods The historical cohort design (EpiLink Bologna) compared adult PWE grouped into people with focal epilepsy (PFE)...

AIM: To study the risk of hospitalization and death for COVID 19 in a large cohort of PWE from 01 March 2020 to 30 October 2021.

Background The indirect impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on major clinical outcomes of people with Parkinson's disease (PD) or other parkinsonism is unknown. Objectives The study aimed to (1) describe changes in healthcare services during the first epidemic bout in people with PD or parkinsonism; (2) compare the occurrence of hospitalization for an...

INTRODUZIONE Durante il primo lockdown (marzo-maggio 2020), l'AUSL di Bologna (bacino di utenza c. 900.000 persone) ha ridotto l'erogazione di servizi sanitari anche a pazienti con patologie croniche, con possibili conseguenze sulla salute. La malattia di Parkinson (MdP) e i parkinsonismi (PKS) sono due condizioni di vulnerabilità estrema, e nell'A...

INTRODUZIONE Il rischio di ospedalizzazione da Sars-Cov-2 sembra più elevato in popolazioni vulnerabili (ad esempio patologie croniche). Non è chiaro se questi rischi siano rimasti costanti durante tutto il periodo epidemico. OBIETTIVI Valutare il rischio di ospedalizzazione da Sars-Cov-2 e relativa mortalità in una coorte di pazienti con Malattia...

There is an increasing need of outcome measures for young people suitable to evaluate treatments and routine settings. However, measures must show suitable psychometric characteristics for such use. This is the first psychometric evaluation of the Italian version of the Core Young Person Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (YP-CORE). Data are r...

During the first 7 months of epidemic bout of COVID-19, including 3 months of strict social lockdown measures and drastic healthcare organizations followed by 4 months of gradual recovery, we observed a harsh restriction of all scheduled healthcare provisions in a population based cohort of Parkinson's disease and parkinsonism of a province of Nort...

Aim To report on the development of an early intervention service in Modena, Italy, with information relevant to the first 4 years of implementation. Methods The 2‐year service was offered to people aged 18‐35 with psychotic manifestations, within 2 years from psychosis onset/or naïve to antipsychotics, by teams placed within community mental heal...

Background: People with psychotic illness suffer from reduced quality of life and often from an insufficient level of social inclusion. These variables are associated with several negative outcomes, such as higher neuro-cognitive deficits, negative symptoms, internalised stigma, increased cardiovascular risk and, most importantly, excess mortality...

Background Early interventions services (EIS) for psychosis are not uniformly available in the Italian public mental health care system. In 2012, Region Emilia Romagna funded the implementation of a comprehensive population based program to deliver EIS. These services provide a package of care including psychiatric consultation, family psychoeducat...

Purpose: People with mental disorders show mortality rates up to 22.2 times higher than that of the general population. In spite of progressive increase in life expectancy observed in the general population, the mortality gap of people suffering from mental health problems has gradually widened. The aim of this paper was to study mortality rates i...

Despite the call by the scientific community for a systematic monitoring of physical health in people with psychiatric illnesses, national and international audits have reported poor quality of cardiovascular risk assessments and management in this vulnerable population. Available evidence indicates that in people affected by mental illness, life e...