Myotonic Muscular Dystrophy - Mental Status Exam - Speech Articulation Sub-exam - Patient 2
Patient is a 52-year-old African-American male with a known diagnosis of myotonic muscular dystrophy. His neuromuscular symptoms began in the early 1990s with poor dexterity in the hands, dropping objects, and clumsiness with fine motor weakness. He is very slow buttoning clothes, putting on his shoes, brushing his teeth, shaving, and other similar activities. He has trouble in ambulation and falls frequently. He has trouble getting up from a chair or sofa and climbing stairs. He also reports co
Stroke - Cranial Nerves Exam - Glossopharyngeal (CN IX) and Vagus (CN X) Sub-exam - Patient 19
This video features a 65-year-old right-handed white male. He was in the Air Force from 1962 until his retirement in 1982. The veteran reported that in 1995 he was diagnosed with inclusion body myositis. He first reported a problem in the early 1990s when carrying his briefcase. He noted problems lifting his right leg up to step onto the bus. Falls began around1994, prompting him to seek medical attention. The initial evaluation showed primarily lower motor neuron findings. He underwent several
Cervical Myelopathy - General Observations Exam - Opening Interview Sub-exam - Patient 13
This 46-year-old African American male presented with progressive weakness of the lower extremities for three months. He had increasing difficulty with walking and balance and now is unable to walk without assistance. He also complained of numbness and "pins and needles" sensation in the upper extremities with clumsiness and decreased dexterity in his right hand. He did not have neck or radicular pain and had no bowel or bladder problems or sexual dysfunction, but did have some urinary urgency.
Cerebellar Degeneration - Motor Exam - Muscle Tone Sub-exam - Patient 17
This 62-year-old white male has had neurological problems dating back to 1990. His initial symptoms consisted of blurred vision and incoordination. When he turns his head to read road signs, his vision is distorted. Gait disturbances have progressed to the point that he is now extremely unsteady. He reels from side-to-side and hangs onto walls for balance. There has been progressive worsening in the dexterity of his hands. Writing, buttoning, holding equipment and manipulating small objects hav
AC / DC: What's the Difference?
This animated essay from the American Experience Web site explains the difference between alternating and direct electric current and offers in-depth explanations about the role played by a battery, light bulb, wire, and generator. Grades 6-12.
"Am I Not a Woman and a Sister?"
African-American women held as slaves were particularly vulnerable to abuse at the hands of their white owners. This engraving appeared in abolitionist George Bourne's Slavery Illustrated in Its Effects upon Women, published in 1837. It highlighted the connections between the anti-slavery and women's rights movements, as some women abolitionists, such as Sarah and Angelina Grimke, used the anti-slavery cause to address their own plight as women. The connections they drew were highly controversia
"Aluminum for Defense": Rationing at Home during World War II
The productive capacity of the United States during World War II surpassed all expectations. To boost that production and maintain supply levels for troops abroad, Americans at home were asked to conserve materials and to accept ration coupons or stamps that limited the purchase of certain products. Gasoline, rubber, sugar, butter, and some kinds of cloth were among the many items rationed. American responses to rationing varied from cheerful compliance to resigned grumbling to instances of blac
"Almost Broken Spirits": Farmers in the New South
In the decades following the Confederacy's 1865 defeat and the abolition of racial slavery, white southern landowners, entrepreneurs, and newspaper editors heralded the coming of a "New South" economic order. Freed from the plantation system, the South would enter the modern age, building factories to turn its cotton into cloth, its tobacco crop into finished cigars and cigarettes, and its growing coal and iron ore output into steel. But not all southerners benefited from a prosperous and indust
"All To Me Was New and Strange": Mary Doolittle Leaves Her Family for a Shaker Community, 1830
During the second quarter of the 19th century numerous radical movements emerged, and some withdrew from society and formed ideal or utopian communities. The Shakers (or Shaking Quakers) were the oldest and largest of these utopian movements, founded in Great Britain by Mother Ann Lee, who arrived in North America in 1774. Shakers abandoned the traditional family in favor of a new fellowship of men and women who lived as brothers and sisters, worked in agriculture and artisanal crafts, and adopt
"All These Mean Dykes Standing Around:"Shelley Ettinger Describes the Lesbian and Gay Community of t
The women's movement of the 1970's sent shock-waves through every corner of American life, transforming the way people thought about families, jobs, and every day interactions. By questioning traditional sex roles, feminism also encouraged the growth of the gay and lesbian rights movement. Previously, many gay men and lesbians had concealed their sexuality, but the 1970's witnessed the growth of assertive and visible gay and lesbian alternative cultures. As a college student at the University of
Federal Court Concepts
This module, "Federal Court Concepts", is designed to introduce secondary and postsecondary students to the American federal court system. It contains basic information about the structure of the federal courts, what kind of cases that federal courts hear, and how to use federal court decisions in research.
"All Over the Land Nothing Else Was Spoken Of ": Cabeza de Vaca Takes Up Residence as a Medicine Man
One of the earliest accounts of the European-Indian encounter in North America was of the ill-fated 1527 expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez. After disembarking on the Florida coast near Tampa, the Spanish forces on land and sea became disastrously separated. Having overstayed their welcome and with local Indians in pursuit, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, second in command, set out with his men on rafts back to Cuba. Eighty survivors came through a hurricane to land near Galveston, Texas. Four year
Against Isolationism: James F. Byrnes Refutes Lindbergh
The interwar peace movement was arguably the largest mass movement of the 1920s and 1930s, a mobilization often overlooked in the wake of the broad popular consensus that ultimately supported the U.S. involvement in World War II. The destruction wrought in World War I (known in the 1920s and 1930s as the "Great War") and the cynical nationalist politics of the Versailles Treaty had left Americans disillusioned with the Wilsonian crusade to save the world for democracy. Senate investigations of w
"After the Ball": Lyrics from the Biggest Hit of the 1890s
The 1890s witnessed the emergence of a commercial popular music industry in the United States. Sales of sheet music, enabling consumers to play and sing songs in their own parlors, skyrocketed during the "Gay Nineties," led by Tin Pan Alley, the narrow street in midtown Manhattan that housed the country's major music publishers and producers. Although Tin Pan Alley was established in the 1880s, it only achieved national prominence with the first "platinum" song hit in American music history--Cha
"Achieving an Atmosphere of Mutual Trust and Confidence": Henry A. Wallace Offers an Alternative to
Allies during World War II, the U.S. and the Soviet Union disagreed over a number of issues after the war. These included control of Eastern Europe, division of Germany, atomic energy, international loans, and the Middle East. On February 9, 1946, Soviet premier Josef Stalin asserted that the continued existence of capitalism in the West would inevitably lead to war. Foreign Service senior diplomat George Kennan sent President Harry Truman, still forming a Soviet policy, a lengthy telegram advoc
A Workingman's Prayer for the Masses
In his essay "Wealth," published in the North American Review in 1889, industrialist Andrew Carnegie argued that individual capitalists were bound by duty to play a broader cultural and social role and thus improve the world. (The essay later became famous under the title "The Gospel of Wealth.") But not everyone agreed with Carnegie's perspective. This 1894 "prayer" by "A Workman" (an anonymous contributor to the National Labor Tribune) was a sarcastic critique of Carnegie's paternalism and phi
A Voice of Moderation: Roosevelt on the Armory Show
In 1913, an "International Exhibition of Modern Art," eventually seen by a half million people, rocked the American art world. First mounted at New York City's 69th Regiment Armory, it became known as the Armory Show, and its self-consciously "modern" approach challenged the dominance of conservative, staid styles of European art. Two-thirds of the 1,600 works were by Americans, and the Europeans whose works were exhibited--Picasso, Matisse, Seurat, Van Gogh, Gaughin, and Duchamp among them--wer
"A Traitor to the Movement"?: A Former SDS and Women's Liberation Activist Testifies before Congress
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was founded in 1962 to change the world by fostering participatory democracy and personal authenticity. Heavily influenced by civil rights organizations, SDS initially operated in inner cities and college campuses to combat racism and discrimination. By the mid-1960s, many activists focused on antiwar activities as American troop involvement in Vietnam escalated. Frustrated with male domination in SDS, leftist women formed feminist splinter groups that eve
A Thorn in the Side: A Socialist Takes Aim at Gompers
During the 1890s, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was faced with both the rising popularity of the People's Party in rural areas and attempts by the Populist movement to create a farmer-labor alliance. At the same time, socialist trade unionists lobbied for greater political involvement and adoption of several key socialist positions by the AFL. One of those socialist trade unionists was J. Mahlon Barnes, a Philadelphia cigar maker, member of the Cigarmakers' International Union, and memb
"A Sweepstakes Attracts Attention": Corporate Executives Defend Sweepstakes Promotions
In the 1960s, lottery-like contests designed to publicize products through sweepstakes competitions spread rapidly. In the 19th century, every state banned lotteries--defined as competitions in which chances to win prizes were sold÷to protect citizens. In 1868, Congress prohibited the distribution of lottery materials through the mail. The mid-20th century sweepstakes, however, did not require contestants to purchase tickets or products to win prizes and were thus considered legal. In 1966, the
