Diseases of the Nervous System in Childhood, Third Edition

by Jean Aicardi, London, MacKeith Press, 2009, 912 pp, Hardcover, $352.00. This voluminous book is considered the all-encompassing oeuvre of child neurology. Jean Aicardi is known for his encyclopedic knowledge of even the rarest conditions that child neurologists might encounter during their career. This is the third edition of this book, 11 years after the second edition in 1998. Child neurology underwent a huge development during this period, mainly in the field of genetic diagnosis. For this review, I tried to look at this textbook from the developmental-behavioral perspective. I was able to have it for several months on my shelf and used it as a reference for workup of some of my own patients and as a teaching resource for our residents and fellows. The layout is well organized, and although the font is small, the readability of the text is good and pleasant. The use of tables is excellent, and they offer a quick overview of different conditions, especially useful for the differential diagnosis of conditions, for example, the tables about the choreas or the different affections of the basal ganglia. Especially helpful for learners is the inclusion of references in the tables, allowing them to search for more detailed literature easily. The “Aicardi” is a textbook. The images used are helpful in illustrating the text but do not have the quality and detail a radiology atlas would offer. As someone trained in child neurology and developmental pediatrics, I value the importance of a good neurologic foundation in analyzing problems in the areas of motor, speech, mental, and behavioral development. This textbook is certainly up to this task in providing detailed descriptions of the different possible structural and functional affections of the brain in childhood and how these may affect development and behavior. Some chapters are especially interesting for the developmental-behavioral pediatrician such as the one about “Neurological and Behavioral Aspects of Genetic Anomalies and Dysmorphic Syndromes Including Some ‘Behavioral Phenotype Syndromes’” by Christopher Gillberg, Jean Aicardi, and Martin Bax. Also, very helpful for teaching our residents and fellows was the entire Part XI “Developmental and Neuropsychiatric Disorders of Childhood” by Christopher Gillberg, which is composed of three chapters entitled “Development: Normal/Delayed/Disordered,” “Autism and Autistic-Like Conditions,” and “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Coexisting Impairments.” In the chapter about autism, I liked the overview of the different classification systems and the modifications that occurred over time with the implications for diagnosis. The proposed term for the DSM-V “Autism Spectrum Disorders” has already been introduced in this chapter. Regarding children with motor problems, the chapter about cerebral palsy by Ingeborg Krägeloh-Mann gives a very good overview of the neurologic basis but also about the management and how the approach has changed in the past decade in favor of a biopsychosocial model of health with emphasis on participation. These concepts are also embraced by the developmental-behavioral pediatricians and very useful for the discussion of cases. The description of some conditions such as cyclic vomiting syndrome or Down syndrome could benefit in future editions by including actual management guidelines like the Guideline of the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition for the diagnosis and treatment of cyclic vomiting syndrome in children and adolescents and the recommendations for Health Supervision for Children with Down Syndrome of the Committee on Genetics at the American Academy of Pediatrics. In summary, this textbook is certainly a great addition of neurologic knowledge for the developmental-behavioral pediatrician, being it for training or for clinical work. The text is very readable and offers a broad range of information with a vast bibliography. I can recommend it especially as a resource for training programs in developmental-behavioral pediatrics and for the neurologically interested clinician in general. Olaf Kraus de Camargo, MD, PhD, FRCPC Division of Developmental Paediatrics McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

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