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The prevalence of wheezing, 'asthma', treatment for 'asthma', and school absence as a result of wheezing in Nottingham was calculated from a questionnaire survey of parents of 4750 children in a random sample of primary schools. A response was achieved for 3805 (80%) children of whom 438 (11.5%) had had episodes of wheezing in the last year and 224 (5.9%) had been diagnosed as having asthma. Asthma treatment had been prescribed for 251 (6.6%) of all children, two thirds of all the children receiving drugs. Two hundred and sixty five (7%) children had lost time from school because of wheezing (median loss of seven days). Of the 64 children losing more than 10 days, 45 (70%) were not taking any drugs, or taking only beta agonists. The prevalence of wheezing found by this survey was comparable with that in similarly designed surveys, though the proportion of children diagnosed as having asthma was higher. Though doctors may now diagnose asthma more readily wheezing still remains an important cause of school absence and still seems to be undertreated.

1 study examined whether different sustained release systems would cause variation in the effect of an antihistamine, brompheniramine maleate 10 mg, upon mood and psychomotor performance. Two commercial preparations were examined, one giving linear release (LR) of the drug over time, the other releasing the drug in a non-linear fashion (NLR). 2 Thirty-six males were allocated to four separate groups receiving either the drug with LR, drug with NLR, placebo or drug-free control. Single dosage of the drug occurred at 08.30 h and subjects completed mood inventories and performed serial choice reaction time and visual search tasks at 1 h, 2.75 h, 5.5 h and 7.25 h post dosage. 3 The NLR system significantly increased feelings of unco-ordination at 2.75 h and significantly slowed reaction time at both 2.75 and 5.5 h post dosage. The LR system significantly slowed reaction time only at 5.5 h but increased pausing in serial choice performance at that time. Neither system impaired visual search. 4 Results suggest that two preparations having identical active constituents may vary in their effects on psychomotor performance and mood as a function of their sustained release systems. A system giving linear release of the drug can reduce the early post-dosage performance decrement associated with a non-linear release system.

The results of three controlled trials performed on children with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus were examined for evidence of seasonal variation in concentrations of glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA1). All three studies showed lower levels during the summer months. Multiple regression analysis showed that the month of sampling accounted for a significant proportion of the total variance in HbA1 levels (P less than 0.001 in all three studies). We suggest that exercise, dietary changes and the frequency of minor illnesses may all contribute to this fluctuation which has important implications for the design of clinical trials in childhood diabetes.

Patients with right or left hemisphere strokes were studied for the nature of emotion conveyed in speech, during the reading of three short passages chosen for the differing emotional tone of their content. Both groups of patients had prosodic qualities which led their speech to be rated as like that of depressed patients and different from that of non-depressed controls. None of the stroke patients had significant depression or anxiety at the time of testing, so this prosodic quality is presumed to relate directly to brain damage.

A randomised double-blind study was conducted to compare the influence on postoperative pain of equal volumes of one of two concentrations of bupivacaine (0.25%, 0.5%), or saline 0.9%, injected into the knee joint after arthroscopy. The results showed that intra-articular bupivacaine had no significant analgesic effect in either concentration. Plasma bupivacaine concentrations were measured 20 minutes after injection in order to determine the extent of systemic absorption.

To investigate the association between the family environment and metabolic control of childhood diabetes 20 diabetic children aged between 4 and 12 years with same-sex healthy siblings and two cohabiting parents were selected. The parents were interviewed separately and completed questionnaires about their own and their spouse's involvement and shared activities with both children, diabetic management, and knowledge of and attitudes towards diabetes. They also completed the Moos Family Environment Scale (FES) which yields ten sub-scales relating to different aspects of family functioning as did 20 sets of parents with age- and sex-matched healthy children, who also completed questionnaires concerning their involvement and shared activities with their children. There were no differences between the families of diabetics and of controls in the extent to which either parent was involved with their children or in the attention each child received. Fathers of diabetic children differed from controls in their use of punishment and diabetic families were less achievement oriented. The degree of metabolic control (HbA1 assessment at three-monthly intervals) was related to parental involvement with the non-diabetic child and to some aspects of the FES including parental incongruence. These differences in family functioning suggest useful directions for possible intervention programmes.

In a double-blind, balanced crossover study, eight healthy male volunteers ingested either DL-308 (10 mg), DL-308 (20 mg), oxazepam (30 mg) or placebo. Subjective estimates of coordination and anxiety, objective performance measurements and cardiovascular measurements were taken at 1, 3, 5 and 8 h after ingestion. DL-308 (20 mg) exerted a strong sedative effect as judged by self-reported coordination scores and performance on logical reasoning and reaction time tests. The effect was evident almost immediately and, on the coordination and reasoning tests, lasted up to 8 h following ingestion. Attention is drawn to the need to extend performance testing in order to maximise test sensitivity. No drug had any consistent or strong influence on cardiovascular measures.