Knowledge, awareness and attitude towards rational use of medicines by community pharmacists in and around Coimbatore, India

Background: Achievement of goals of rational use of medicine (RUM) in the community is not possible without participation of community pharmacists. Pharmacists must know that they are the main tool to educate and spread information on rational use of medicine in the community. This background enabled this study to observe the knowledge, awareness and attitude of the community pharmacists towards the rational use of medicine. Aim and Objectives were to assess the knowledge and awareness among community pharmacists about rational drug use in and around Coimbatore.Methods: It was a cross sectional observational study using a preformed questionnaire. Study participants were 215 Community Pharmacists (those are registered pharmacist running standalone pharmacy stores not affiliating to any institutions /hospitals/not a part of a large chain of stores) inside (115 Pharmacist) and around (100 Pharmacist) Coimbatore city. Questionnaire was given to them and results were analyzed and expressed in percentage at the end of the study.Results: Comparing the awareness about RUM in the community pharmacists in and around Coimbatore was found with the results which was almost equal or less in terms of dispensing medicines without prescription, issuing medicines to outdated prescription, educating the public about ADR etc.Conclusions: This study ensure the need of the community pharmacist participation for the development of a clear educational policy on promoting rational use of medicine involving all segments of health care system to ensure the community benefit and safety

Comparative study on estimation of Acenocoumarol Levels in Blood in patients with Extremes of INR Values and Normal INR Values after Valve Replacement Surgery

INTRODUCTION : Acenocoumarol is the commonly used vitamin K antagonist that have a narrow therapeutic index and acenocoumarol relationship between dose and response is un-predictable. Large inter individual variation in response to acenocoumanol, leads frequent estimation of the international normalized ratio. The major side effects of oral anticoagulation is complications due to bleeding even when INR values are within the therapeutic range. Therapeutic drug monitoring of acenocoumarol levels in blood is essential to provide optimal dosage to prevent sub-therapeutic/ supratherapeutic drug therapy which can lead to lifethreatening complications in patients with mechanical heart valve replacement. AIM : To study the association between plasma concentration of acenocoumarol at the trough and Cmax levels with INR values in patients who have undergone valve replacement. METHODOLOGY : After IHEC approval 56 patients were enrolled in to the study. Participants who are taking acenooumarol 2mg with low INR, normal INR and high INR was included. Blood samples were taken for estimation of Trough and Cmax concenrations by HPLC method. Statistical analysis was done. RESULTS : There was no correlation between INR and plasma concentration of acenocoumarol taken at trough and Cmax level. (P value > 0.05). The plasma concentration of acenocoumarol (trough and Cmax) was not significantly different among the three groups of participants (P value > 0.05). CONCLUSION : We can conclude that measuring INR alone, will have limited value for dose adjustment of acenocoumarol as proved by other studies for warfarin. Hence estimation of plasma concentration of acenocoumarol will be ideal and appropriate for the dose adjustment of acenocoumarol

A PROSPECTIVE STUDY FOR THE EVALUATION OF NERVE CONDUCTION ABNORMALITIES IN NEWLY DIAGNOSED TYPE 2 DIABETIC PATIENTS

Objectives: Peripheral neuropathy is the one of the frequently encountered complication of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Although, the prevalence of diabetic peripheral neuropathy is associated with the diabetes duration, in some cases, the state of neuropathy is evident at the time of diagnosis. In this backdrop, the present study was carried out to evaluate the nerve conduction abnormalities in newly diagnosed T2DM. Methods: This was a prospective study carried out on 30 newly diagnosed T2DM within a time range of 1 month. The patient symptoms such as weakness, burning and tingling senzation, hyperesthesia, and foot ulcer and gait abnormalities were recorded. Nerve conduction analysis of upper limb and lower limb of non-dominant hand side was done using neuro pack S1 machine. Results: Thirty newly diagnosed T2DM patients were enrolled in the present study. The mean age of the patients was found to be 58.12±15.28 years. Distal motor latencies were elevated in T2DM patients as compared to the controls (p<0.05). Further, there was significant prolongation of F-wave latencies in the upper and Lower limbs of the patients as compared to the controls (p<0.05). In addition, there was a significant decrease in sensory conduction velocities in T2DM patients as that of the controls (p<0.05). Conclusion: The study concludes that newly diagnosed T2DM is susceptible to DPN with high incidence rates. Hence, it is essential to perform the nerve conduction studies in newly diagnosed T2DM patients for the early detection and better management and also to prevent the complications

MODIFIED APPROXIMATE DCT FOR IMAGE COMPRESSION USING EFFICIENT BINARY ADDER

ABSTRACT Image processing became a big challenge in the multimedia usage for processing the images with low power and high efficiency. For processing images, DCT (Discrete cosine transforms) are utilized for compression because of its advantages over the energy consumption. In existing methods, they used Approximate DCT with fast algorithm and regular pipelining structure for reducing the design complexities. Because of the recursive nature in the existing design, high speed applications are becoming tedious. In our proposed system, we are using Modified Approximate DCT transforms with efficient binary adder circuits. The proposed solution possesses reduced number of gates and logic realization becomes easy for implementation