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Health Phones: A Potential Game Changer in Health Information Management
No full textHealth education has to be one of the most effective ways to reduce morbidity and mortality in developing countries. We need to deliver vital messages and information to people at the lower quarter of the society to use changing behaviour and practices which can save and protect their lives. It is in this context, use of mobile phones in delivering vital health information is of significance. This article reviews few projects which successfully use mobile phones for health information delivery
An Unusual Case of Cervical Tuberculosis
No full textTuberculosis of the cervix is a rare disease and accounts to 0.1 – 0.65% of all cases of tuberculosis and 5 – 24 % of genital tract tuberculosis. We present an unusual case of 40 years old lady who presented with irregular bleeding per vagina and foul smelling white discharge for 1 year. Per speculum examination revealed an unhealthy looking cervix which bled on touch. A clinical diagnosis of carcinoma cervix was made. However, cervix biopsy revealed granulomatous lesion suggestive of tuberculosis. The patient responded to antitubercular therapy. In women with abnormal cervical appearance, there should be high index of suspicion of tuberculosis cervix, especially from areas where tuberculosis is common as it can be easily treated
Primary Amoebic (Naegleria fowleri) Meningoencephalitis Presenting as Status Epilepticus
No full textPrimary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) is a rare entity. Usual presenting features are fever, headache and seizures with meningeal signs and this disease carries high mortality rate. We present a case report of PAM presenting as status epilepticus
Cervical Thymic Cysts Masquerading as Thyroid Cysts
No full textTwo interesting cases of cervical thymic cyst are reported highlighting the importance of this entity which can be missed preoperatively . Thymic cysts are of two types-unilocular and multilocular. They differ in both macroscopic as well as microscopic findings. Histopathology helps to identify these cysts
Health Scenario of Major Tribals of Northern Orissa in Relation to Human Growth, Development and Nutrition and the Role of Genetic Factors in Smell and Tasting Abilities in Children
No full textThe nature of physical growth and development of children depends primarily upon the genetic endowments, nutritional status, psychosocial attitude and surrounding physical environmental conditions. School going children are the most important segment of the society who are affected by under- and mal-nutrition. Good nutrition is an indispensable component of healthy life. Tribal children studying in Ashram schools can be taken as representatives of the predominant tribes of the area. This study was aimed at evaluating the health profile in relation to growth, development and nutrition of a randomly selected cross section of 1038 Ashram school children aged six through 15 years in the state of Orissa. Following the standard methodology, it was noticed that nutritional complications are compounded due to ignorance, bad food habits, food fads, and poverty. About 71% of the Ashram school children showed mild to moderate anemia. According to different grades of malnutrition, the frequency of grade III malnutrition was very low in Ashram-school boys (1.4%) and girls (3.5%), with an average of 2.3%. The grade I as well as grade II malnutrition was also higher in girls (grade II =24.3%; grade I= 37.6%) as compared to boys (grade II=16.7%; grade I=31.5%) with an average of 19.9% and 34.1%, respectively for grade II and grade I malnutrition. There was a consistent pattern of increase in height and weight in the year six through fifteen of age, showing that height and weight of the Ashram school children increases with the corresponding advancement of age in both boys and girls. In general, the girls were shorter and lighter in weight than the boys. This pattern is consistent in the present study of Ashram school children in Orissa. It has been observed that apart from the genetic potential, the intra-uterine environment, mother’s nutritional status before, during and post pregnancy, and neonatal nutrition and associated traditional behavior drastically influence the growth and development of individuals. Adequate physical and mental fitness of parents is a marker for physical and mental fitness of the progeny. Heritable genetic factors are responsible for the ability to detect and identify smell and taste of food items of liking and disliking and for the fussy behavior toward different foods in children
Burden and Coping in Informal Caregivers of Persons with Dementia: A Cross Sectional Study
No full textCaring for persons affected with dementia is associated with substantial psychological strain as evidenced by high rates of psychiatric morbidity and high levels of caregiver strain. Dementia care in developing countries will continue to be provided by immediate family members at home and is unlikely to be taken over by institutions due to socio-cultural reasons. This study aims to examine the relationship of selected factors of patients affected with dementia and their caregivers that were associated with the burden and coping of family caregivers. This is a cross sectional study of a long term project by the author (RJ), involves face-to-face interview with questionnaires with family caregivers of patients with dementia. Burden was related to patient’s behavioral problems, gender, family type and the years of care giving. Principal component analysis of Brief Cope revealed 6 major dimensions: acceptance, humor, religion, substance use, behavioral disengagement and self blame as significant coping skills. Care giving was associated with more psychological complaints and a poor quality of life both physical and psychological. Self blame, behavioral disengagement, venting & emotional support emerged as an important variable as the care giver relation differ in the kind of care giving and care giving burden. Results highlight the importance of improving the mixed coping skills in burdened caregivers. Interventions need to designed and tailored to the specific needs of caregivers
Study of Plasma Ascorbic Acid Levels in Wheezing Children
No full textBackground: Reactive Oxygen species induced bronchial abnormalities may have important consequences in asthma, the main symptom being wheezing specially in children. Vitamin C is an important antioxidant known to quench the reactive oxygen species. A beneficial effect of fresh fruit consumption on lung function has been observed in several studies. Plasma levels Vitamin C was determined in relation to wheezing symptoms in cross sectional study. Methods: In a cross sectional blood samples of 50 patients attending pediatrics OPD, having wheezing and shortness of breath were analyzed for plasma Ascorbic acid level and compared with healthy controls of same age and sex. Results: The total number of 50 wheezing children were in the age group of 2 to 12 years with similar age matched controls. It was observed that the plasma ascorbic acid concentration in the wheezing children (0.43 – 0.12 mg/dl) was significantly decreased as compared to the normal controls ( 0.75 – 0.18 mg/dl ) P< 0.001. The highly significant low levels of plasma ascorbic acid level in wheezing children was irrespective of sex and severity of symptoms. However the ascorbic acid levels were at the lower side in female and with severe symptoms. Conclusions: Plasma Ascorbic acid levels were significantly, decreased in the process of scavenging the reactive oxygen species. Ascorbic acid directly neutralizes free radical and protects the bronchial tissue from oxidative injury, so it can be concluded that the consumption of fruit rich in vitamin C may reduce wheezing symptoms in children
A Web Smart Space Framework for Intelligent Search Engines
No full textA web smart space is an intelligent environment which has additional capability of searching the information smartly and efficiently. New advancements like dynamic web contents generation has increased the size of web repositories. Among so many modern software analysis requirements, one is to search information from the given repository. But useful information extraction is a troublesome hitch due to the multi-lingual; base of the web data collection. The issue of semantic based information searching has become a standoff due to the inconsistencies and variations in the characteristics of the data. In the accomplished research, a web smart space framework has been proposed which introduces front end processing for a search engine to make the information retrieval process more intelligent and accurate. In orthodox searching anatomies, searching is performed only by using pattern matching technique and consequently a large number of irrelevant results are generated. The projected framework has insightful ability to improve this drawback and returns efficient outcomes. Designed framework gets text input from the user in the form complete question, understands the input and generates the meanings. Search engine searches on the basis of the information provided
Sphingosomes a novel approach to vesicular drug delivery
No full textVesicular systems have been realized as extremely useful carrier systems in various scientific domains. Sphingosomes is bilayered vesicles in which an aqueous volume is entirely enclosed by membrane lipid bilayer mainly composed of natural or synthetic sphingolipid. Sphingosomes solve the major drawback of vesicle system (liposomes, niosomes) like less stability, less in vivo circulation time, low tumor loading efficacy in case of cancer therapy. Sphingosomes are clinically used delivery system for chemotherapeutic agent, biological macromolecule and diagnostics. Due to flexibility in size and composition, different types of sphingosomes have been developed. The out come of this review is that sphingosomes represents a promising vesicular drug delivery system to delivers therapeutic compounds for a range of possible applications
Inhibitory effect of calotropis gigantea extract on ovalbumin-induced airway inflammation and arachidonic acid induced inflammation in a murine model of asthma
No full textThe root of Calotropis gigantea has been reported as a traditional folkloric medicine in treatment of asthma in the Indian literature. Root contain α-and β-amyrin are reported to possess anti-lipoxygenase activity. Present study was undertaken to investigate the effect of methanolic extract of root of Calotropis gigantea (Linn.) R.Br. (CG) on ovalbumin induced asthma and arachidonic acid induced paw edema in rats. In ovalbumin induced asthma, rats were sensitized and challenged with ovalbumin (OVA). The effect of CG at 100, 200, 400 mg/kg, p.o. on inflammatory cell count, level of nitric oxide and total protein in bronchalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid, lung antioxidant enzymes (LPO, GSH, SOD, Catalase) and histopathological changes were observed. Change in paw edema volume was measured in arachidonic acid induced paw edema model. CG at 200, 400 mg/kg, p.o. showed significant inhibition of eosinophil, neutrophil and lymphocyte and total leukocyte count in bronchalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid (p<0.05). In BAL fluid, CG significantly reduced the nitric oxide and total protein levels (p<0.05). CG significantly restored the levels of GSH, SOD and LPO in lungs (p<0.01). CG at doses of 200, 400 mg/kg significantly inhibited OVA induced histological changes (p<0.01). CG significantly reduced the arachidonic acid induced paw edema volume (p<0.05). These results suggest that CG may prove to be potential therapeutic drug for treating asthma owing to its anti-inflammatory, anti-lipoxygenase and antioxidant activities. \ud
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