title: Pilot study to detect neurologic disease in Ecuador among a population with a high prevalence of endemic goiter.
abstract: A census, uniform screening questionnaire, and simple screening neurologic examination were administered in a door-to-door survey to residents of Quiroga, Ecuador, a rural community in the Andes Mountains. The screening procedures had been pretested to assure a high level of sensitivity for detecting children and adults with major neurologic disease. A total of 1,113 participated in the study. Of these, 399 had responses or findings suggesting the presence of neurologic disease. These individuals were then examined by a neurologist, who used fixed diagnostic criteria. The prevalence ratios (per 1,000) for the most common neurologic conditions identified in this survey are: recurrent/persistent severe headache = 68.3, and epilepsy = 17.1.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004484:Ecuador; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000453:epidemiology; D006043:Goiter, Endemic / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006261:Headache / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000453:epidemiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009422:Nervous System Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D010865:Pilot Projects