Talk:Astasis

Non-peer review

 * Hey guys, looks like a great start. Just a few things to consider as you continue to edit/add to the page: First, in your "Causes" section, you should probably include some kind of introduction to your list of possible causes (something as basic as "Although a single cause for astasis is not known, there are several possible conditions that can lead to astasis"). Also, your "treatment through therapy" section should just be called "treatment". This brings me to my final suggestion which is to take a peek at some other Wiki pages about diseases/conditions and try to follow that general format. For example, many include "Diagnosis" or "Pathophysiology" sections. Check out Cushing's Syndrome and other disease pages for ideas. Good luck! Stempera (talk) 01:13, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, I updated the causes section, the treatment through therapy section, and fixed the general format. Since the disease is very limited in its scope, I didn't think there is enough information to have a pathophysiology section, but I did take a look at some pages and changed some of the sections around. --Liepa (talk) 03:31, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review
Good article so far, it is very well written, but here are some specifics that I noticed:

1. Link it from Blocq's disease and pretectal syndrome so it is less of an orphan. Make a relevant sentence on each of those pages to incorporate the link.

2. Remove the quotes in the beginning and just talk about the content of them. Neither quote is that insightful and explaining the content of the quotes would be equally, if not more, effective.

3. Either expand on the signs and symptoms section by taking the various signs and symptoms from other parts of the article and putting it all together there, or remove it as a main header and just have the signs and symptoms spread out through the articles.

4. The first paragraph of causes is repetitive because you mention some of the causes in the first paragraph and then talk about them later. For example: diabetes is mentioned and then has it's own section.

5. I would move diabetes to future research if it hasn't been proven yet.

6. Finally, I would incorporate the past and current research in the main parts of the article, and have only a section for future research if there is any to talk about.

Keep up the good work.

Sheggers (talk) 17:48, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback! 1. I added the correct link on the Blocq's disease page but don't think it belongs on the pretectal syndrome's page. 2. Done. 3. I reorganized this section. 4. The first mention is just a preview of what we will expand on further in the article, but thanks for the suggestion. 5. There isn't much future research so we can consider it current, and I may move it to that section. 6. Thanks for the advice but there just isn't enough research to separate them out yet. --Liepa (talk) 03:35, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review 2
Overall, I thought that the article provided a good amount of content and, as far I could tell, it seemed accurate. I also liked the way you were able to utilize a study’s quote to express the effects of astasis. Similarly, I appreciated the organization of the “Causes” section. However there were some structural and grammatical issues I found. Here is a list of things you could improve (they shouldn’t be hard to fix):

1. Structure: The “Signs and Symptoms” section I thought was too short to be its own category. Either you need to expand it or you could add it as a subsection to another heading (maybe making a “Symptoms and Causes” section).

2. Structure: I found the title “Treatment through Therapy” to be a bit redundant. Maybe just pick “Treatment” or “Therapy.”

3. Structure: The last section “Past, Current, and Future Research” is a little odd because it mainly focuses on a study from 1975. Maybe you could add that to the “Treatment” section. That way you could add some current/future research to the section and remove the “past” from the title.

4. Grammar: The sentence “it is most frequently, though not invariably accompanied by abasia, an inability to walk, see Astasia-abasia, the most common disease astasis can be seen in” is awkward to read (especially the command “see”). Instead maybe you could consolidate it more by using “most commonly Astasia-abasia” or something.

5. Grammar: The sentence that includes “the first to describe this phenomenon of. . .” is also a bit awkward. It might be better to either split it into two sentences or change “this” to “the.” The introduction should be one of the easier sections to read because it has to appeal to the reader.

6. Grammar: When you write “and in the literature about the phenomenon, it is most commonly referred to as astasia,” it sounds too wordy.

7. Grammar: The phrase “first cases (11 cases)” is redundant. It should just be “first eleven cases.”

8. Grammar: This is not a huge issue, but I like the phrase “in which.” It should replace “where” in the sentences about conversion disorders.

Other than that, it was quite a good article!

Kniemeyer (talk) 04:14, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback! 1. Changed. 2. Changed 3. Fixed the section 4. Changed. 5. Changed. 6. Changed. 7. Changed. 8. Changed.

Thanks for all the great help!

--Liepa (talk) 03:36, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review 3
Overall, good article guys. It's clear you've done your research and know a lot about your material. I liked how you addressed many different aspects of your topic, like the effects of diabetes and spinal cord lesions. My only concern, like the other users that have already left comments, is one of clarity. I found your introductory very difficult to follow. The first and second sentences have a lot of information in them, and I think they would flow a lot better if they were broken down into four or five concise sentences, rather than two long ones. The phrase ‘It is most frequently, though not invariably accompanied by abasia, an inability to walk, see Astasia-abasia, the most common disease astasis can be seen in’ does not currently make sense. It seems like two different sentences accidentally got stuck together when you were putting up the article, so if you could just separate these ideas it would make your introduction so much better.

In the same vein I would add that the second two paragraphs of your introduction could use a little tweaking as far as phrasing goes. They are also run-on sentences, which makes them a little hard to follow. Also, I think that they might fit better in the history section, rather than in the introduction, since they describe who first discovered the disease. Putting them there would also eliminate some of the repetition that the other reviewers commented on.

For your signs and symptoms section, I would love to see just a little more expansion. For example, could you describe exactly what ‘tight rope balancing’ is, and perhaps point out some of the specific modes of atypical posture? Just adding a sentence or two more would greatly improve this section.

Besides those few little things, great work guys, and great article!

KMaher123 (talk) 21:48, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback! I reworked the whole introduction and reorganized a lot of it to be more clearly understood. Please let me know if it is still awkward or confusing. I fixed many of the run-ons and the tweaking of the intro. I also tried to expand on the symptoms section. Thanks again!

--Liepa (talk) 03:38, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review 4
It may be helpful to move the “Terminology” section to the introduction, since it provides a clear definition and etymology for astasia, which is a great starting point for the article. You also may want to move the information about Paul Scar Blocq and other early studies from the introduction to later on in the "History" section, since in the “History” section you are creating a timeline for its first characterization.

The “Signs and Symptoms” section is very short and should either be expanded to more than two sentences or combined with another section.

It could make the “Causes” section more clear if you began with the general causes or theories behind the causes rather than starting with an specific and isolated example of “one patient with astasis”, as you do in the second paragraph of the section.

In the "Treatment Through Therapy" section, you may want to remove the second “help” in the sentence “This would help patients with astasia help maintain balance…” in order to avoid redundancy.

The general format for the “See also” section is typically bullet points rather than a single line with commas and is usually alphabetized. Additional sources and references would also be helpful.

This is a very good start. I wish you all luck as you continue to improve your article. Coopersk (talk) 22:03, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the help with the page! I removed the terminology section and introduced it into our main article intro. I also moved Paul Oscar Blocq's information to the history section. I tried to expand the signs and symptoms, but thought that the causes section needed to be reworded just a little bit and not changed completely. I removed the second help, thanks! I also fixed the see also section, although I am still going to add a few more references. I appreciate the help!

--Liepa (talk) 03:41, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review 5
Overall, this was a really good article. This article particularly excelled in thoroughly expanding most of its headings, displayed an amazing history (the etymology was particularly insightful), and really thoroughly detailed the causes of astasis.

There are several possibilities to make this an even better article. One possibility is to include pictures and diagrams. Pictures and diagrams really help make topics easier to understand for visual learners and would help break up the article so it is not all words, but images as well. This may be difficult since the pictures must be from the pre-approved selection of images and our group had difficulty finding images as well, but even an image to expand one of your ideas, even if this may not be a picture of astasis itself. Obviously, a picture that doesn’t relate or is too discociated from your topic would not be preferable, but if images do exist, they have the potential to help improve your page. Another area that could be improved is the signs and symptoms section of your article. While it seems like a good idea to have signs and symptoms as its own section, there does not seem to be enough information under this heading. This could be combatted by bulleting the symptoms, rather than listing them, or expanding on the meanings of the symptoms such as gyrations and tight rope balancing. Rather than expanding on and defining these, it could help to link these to the Wikipedia pages (though for gyrations and tight rope balancing they do not appear to be what you’d be looking for).

Additionally, I would add a comma following cerebellar ataxia and before in the fact in your first paragraph. Also the “It” is ambiguous following vestibulocerebellular syndrome in the first paragraph and would read more clearly if changed to “Astasis.” Finally the last sentence of the first paragraph ends with a proposition (in). Sentences are not supposed to end in propositions. The sentence could revised as follows:“It is most frequently, though not invariably, accompanied by abasia, an inability to walk. See Astasia-abasia, the most common disease in which astasis can be seen.”

Under signs and symptoms, it would read better if the word “can” is eliminated. “Many” is unnecessary as well.

Past, Current, and Future Research only appears to show past research. This heading can be expanded with current and future research possibilities. This will not only make this section longer, but more thorough and accurate if you plan on leaving current and future research in the heading.

JaimeeDavis (talk) 06:19, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

'''Thanks so much for the great recommendations. Love the idea about the bulleting of signs and symptoms and have since done so. Also the main reason we havent added a picture is that we couldnt figure out how. But I've looked up some tutorials and managed to add a photo I believe to be relevant. The rest of the grammar and editing should be taken care of also. Thanks again '''--Drewmokas

Peer Review 6
I'll try not to be reduntant since other people brought up a lot of really good ideas. However, there are some suggestions on how to incorporate their feedback. In the previous comment, someone mentioned a diagnosis section, which would be really helpful. A good way to do this might just be scrapping the history and symptoms section and just combining the two (I don't know if you technically NEED a history of the disease section). You could talk about how it was initially diagnosed and how it is diagnosed now. Thus you could have a little more history (which I admit, was very hard to find any information on) and also a lot of the symptoms without having two smaller sections. It just looks better to me (bigger is better, right?).

Also, you might want to remove or change the two quotes that you used in the introduction and the history. The intro quote actually just kind of made me more confused, because it was just hard to visualize the movements the quote was trying to describe. However, I am not really sure how you would make that more clearly, besides incorporating a small video or multiple pictures or something. The second quote also seemed a little unnecessary in the history section. It might be better to put it in the intro, since it defines the subject of the entire article. That way we could see it at the beginning.

Altogether though, this is a good article. I hadn't heard of it before, and I have a pretty good understanding of it now after reading your article. As Tony the Tiger would say, Greeeeeat!

Westerdahl (talk) 21:51, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

'''Thanks a lot for your feedback. We tried to eliminate the problem of small signs and symptoms section by flushing it out and reformatting it with bullet points. We also removed the quote from the intro paragraph as you suggested but decided to leave the one in the history because it summarizes the initial discovery of the symptoms and what was seen. I hope the introduction regained some of its clarity with the section that replaces the quote. Thanks again''' --Drewmokas 6 December 2011

Peer Review 7
Good job guys. This is a very interesting article. I do have a few comments and critiques, some of which have been touched on in prior peer reviews so I'll try not to be too repetitive.

I feel like the introduction was a little long. The paragraph about Paul Oscar Blocq seems like it belongs in the history section. A few of the peer reviews criticized the quote in the introduction, but I'm not sure if I agree with them. It's not very factual so I'm not sure if it belongs in an article about a scientific topic like this. However, when I was reading this article I felt like that quote helped me put a face on the disease. It really highlighted the difference between paralysis and astasis. I think it works as an eye catcher that makes the reader want to continue into the body of the article.

In the peripheral neuropathy section, I don't think you should say "... is a leading theory to the cause of astasis." This is just my opinion, but I feel like there should only be one "leading" theory. I would probably say something like "One theory with significant scientific backing is..."

In a lot of the sections, I feel like a high percentage of your sentences start with "this" or "these." I thought it was kind of hard to flow through the article without backtracking and trying to figure out what this or these referred to.

I would break up the treatment through therapy section into subtopics.

Under the research section I would break it up and elaborate more on the research regarding the causes of astasia because that seems to be where there is more debate and theories happening.

Overall, very interesting article. I'd just read it over and consider making a change every time you have to backtrack to see what something is referring to or read something that had already been said.

rscully22 (talk) 23:05, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

'''Thank you for your suggestions. Really appreciate the feedback. I believe we have addressed the problem you mentioned with the intro paragraph by splitting it into an intro and history paragraph. WE also tried to address some of the structural issues you mentioned by varying sentence structures. We are still working on finding something relevant for the research section but because this is more of symptom than a disorder in and of itself there is not much available. Thanks again ''' Drewmokas 6 December 2011

Peer Review (8)
Hey guys. Great job with the article, it's very informative. However, the introductory paragraph is very unclear. It might be better if the opening sentence were altered to read as such "astasis is the inability to stand, walk or even sit up without assistance due to disruption of muscle coordination, often in the absence of motor weakness or sensory loss." Another suggestion would be to remove the historical section from the introduction and just consolidate the first and last paragraphs in a fairly basic introduction. It would also probably be a good decision to rework the History section by opening with the section in your introduction and then reorgnizing the information under the Paul Oscar Blocq section, while linking to his page as it would be a much more concise way of presenting the information. Wikipedia guidelines also state that for Headers the only part capitalized is the first letter of the first word, so that needs to be changed as well (this has probably been mentioned before, so I apologize if this seems repetitive). If possible, you should probably expand the Signs and Symptoms section or simply present it in a different manner (write an introductory sentence and then list the symptoms) just to make the section look a bit bigger and consistent with other Wikipedia pages on diseases. Is there anyway that you could expand the current research section? You mention a study from 1975 but I find it a little hard to believe that there is nothing available on astasia that has been done in the last decade or so. Aside from this, there are a few grammatical/flow issues within several sections (Paul Oscar Blocq section - "he is credited with diagnosing the first 11 cases/instances of patients with astasia" would flow a lot better) which you'll be able to catch through a quick read through. Smaild2011 (talk) 04:02, 16 November 2011‎ (UTC)

'''Thanks a lot for the great suggestions. Your improvement to the opening sentence has been incorporated and definitely helps the articles clarity. We also rearranged the introduction and history sections to give them distinction and focus. We took care of the grammatical and header formatting errors as well (thanks for the reminder). The signs and symptoms section has been augmented as you suggested and we are working hard to find some more relevant research. Thanks''' Drewmokas  6 December 2011

Peer Review 9
This is certainly a great foundation for this article; I just have a few suggestions for improvement. First I think it might be better to include the Terminology section as part of your introduction and simplify it down to a few shorter sentences, I’m not sure it needs its own heading. Also I thought the signs and symptoms section was a little sparse and only mentioned physical symptoms with out any sort of time line or elaboration. This section also had many words that be better off hyperlinked like paralysis and tremors. I also was wondering if there was any multimedia or images available to add to this article since it is currently very text heavy? Many of the symptoms are described in detail but perhaps images of the posture changes may be helpful. You also mention under the Causes section that Peripheral neuropathy is the leading hypothesis explaining the occurrence of Astasis. It many make more sense to have that be the first sub-heading under the Causes section and then follow it with the remaining hypotheses. mistamoneill(talk) 03:22, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

'''We have incorporated the technology section into the introduction and history as you suggested. We have added bulk and hyperlinks to the signs and symptoms section. We added one image that we feel demonstrates the effects of the symptoms of the disorders. We addressed peripheral neuropathy issue as well. Thanks so much for the suggestions. Drewmokas (talk) 01:41, 8 December 2011

Peer Review 9
This is a good draft. There are some wiki edits that need to be made. In addition to adding photos, a lot of terminology must be hyperlinked. Remember this is for the general audience - complicated terminology may be understood by everyone and we should direct them to further knowledge. Another wiki edit would be to change around the order of the paragraphs - past, current and future research isnt a great topic header. More research needs to be done on current research and that needs to be smoothly integrated into the main body of your page. Also keep your introduction paragraph cleaner - get a very brief summary that covers your entire body. Also please see how to properly format the other resources section. Also separate the history section from the introduction - it changes the momentum of the article. Also please make sure things are said only once in the article - it feels like there was not a lot communication when this was written. Great start though - mrfushiman(talk) 14:22, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback! We added a picture to our article and I have hyperlinked more terms that I thought were necessary. There is no current research being done on this topic so that is why we included all three as a header but we took this out altogether. The introduction has been cleaned up and we've separated more of the information into the history section. Thank you for all the suggestions! ivesm(talk) 16:32, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review
Hey guys, I thought it was a really good article and I'll try to not be too repetitive. I feel that some of the history part does not need to be in the introduction and could be relocated to the history section. In particular the last paragraph in the intro about the patient description could be moved to the signs and symptoms section to add some more there. Also, adding more to that section in general could be good. I did really like the etymology information in the history part. Also I thought that the future research section could maybe be combined with the therapy section with therapy being current research, and then more could be said about future research. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sahaancs (talk • contribs) 00:09, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you so much! Both of your first suggestions were great and changed both of those. Also that's a great idea to use therapy as current research because we've been having trouble finding information for this section. Thanks for your help! ivesm(talk) 16:39, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review 10
Good article guys. I think the intro is a little long. Since you talk about Paul Oscar Blocq further down, I don't think you should mention him so thoroughly in the beginning. In the terminology section, put the etymology in a sentence, not in perentheses. The Signs and Symptoms is a little short for such a large title. Lengthen it a little bit. I don't know if you guys have read through it a lot because it tends to be a little repetitive. Otherwise great stuff. I would put the "See Also" links in order down, not across. pmcronin(talk) 22:03, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the recommendations! We've moved most of the information about Paul Oscar Blocq from the intro to the history section, and we also took out the terminology section all together. Also we've added bullet points for the signs and symptoms hoping to make it seem lengthier and added a few more things to it. I've also read through it a few more times and took out the information that was repetitive. Thanks for all your great feedback! ivesm(talk) 16:45, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review 11
Great article guys. It was really interesting to read through, and everything was hyperlinked to the other wikipedia pages really well. The only thing I would change would be to go through the introduction again and make it flow a little better. The wordin is a little cluttered and could be edited a little to make it more clear and cohesive. Also, the signs and symptoms section sounds really interesting and if you could provide some more information there it would really add to the page. MattSchechter —Preceding undated comment added 15:13, 21 November 2011 (UTC).

Thanks for your feedback! We have edited the introduction more so now hopefully it sounds more cohesive and we've also added more to our signs and symptoms. Thanks so much! Ivesm (talk) 16:47, 7 December 2011 (UTC)