Antimicrobial activity of leaf extracts of Indian medicinal plants against clinical and phytopathogenic bacteria

The ethnobotanical efficacy of Indian medicinal plants; Achyranthes aspera, Artemisia parviflora, Azadirachta indica, Calotropis gigantean, Lawsonia inermis, Mimosa pudica, Ixora coccinea, Parthenium hysterophorus and Chromolaena odorata were examined using agar disc diffusion method against clinical bacteria (Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus) and phytopathogenic bacteria (Xanthomonas vesicatoria and Ralstonia solanacearum). Leaves were extracted using different solvents such as methanol, ethanol, ethyl acetate and chloroform. Among treatments, maximum in vitro inhibition was scored in methanol extracts of C. odorata which offered inhibition zone of 10, 9, 12 and 12 mm against E. coli, S. aureus, X. vesicatoria and R. solanaccearum, respectively, followed by chloroform extract of the same plant leaf with inhibition zone of 8, 4, 4 and 4 mm, respectively. A significant inhibition of E. coli was found in aqueous and in all tested solvent extracts of A. indica. In case of S. aureus, maximum inhibition of 8 mm was obtained in aqueous extracts of A. indica and 6 mm from methanol extract of L. inermis. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) value for the clinicalbacteria ranged between 0.35 to 4.0 mg/ml and 0.25 to 4.0 mg/ml for phytopathogenic bacteria when tested with all four solvents extracts of C. odorata. Whereas, extracts of A. aspera, A. parviflora, C. gigantean, L. inermis, M. pudica and I. coccinea were found to be ineffective or showed poor inhibition on tested human and phytopathogenic bacteria

Taking stock of 10 years of published research on the ASHA programme: Examining India’s national community health worker programme from a health systems perspective

Background: As India’s accredited social health activist (ASHA) community health worker (CHW) programme enters its second decade, we take stock of the research undertaken and whether it examines the health systems interfaces required to sustain the programme at scale. Methods: We systematically searched three databases for articles on ASHAs published between 2005 and 2016. Articles that met the inclusion criteria underwent analysis using an inductive CHW–health systems interface framework. Results: A total of 122 academic articles were identified (56 quantitative, 29 mixed methods, 28 qualitative, and 9 commentary or synthesis); 44 articles reported on special interventions and 78 on the routine ASHA program. Findings on special interventions were overwhelmingly positive, with few negative or mixed results. In contrast, 55% of articles on the routine ASHA programme showed mixed findings and 23% negative, with few indicating overall positive findings, reflecting broader system constraints. Over half the articles had a health system perspective, including almost all those on general ASHA work, but only a third of those with a health condition focus. The most extensively researched health systems topics were ASHA performance, training and capacity-building, with very little research done on programme financing and reporting, ASHA grievance redressal or peer communication. Research tended to be descriptive, with fewer influence, explanatory or exploratory articles, and no predictive or emancipatory studies. Indian institutions and authors led and partnered on most of the research, wrote all the critical commentaries, and published more studies with negative results. Conclusion: Published work on ASHAs highlights a range of small-scale innovations, but also showcases the challenges faced by a programme at massive scale, situated in the broader health system. As the programme continues to evolve, critical comparative research that constructively feeds back into programme reforms is needed, particularly related to governance, intersectoral linkages, ASHA solidarity, and community capacity to provide support and oversight

Efficient Signal Conditioning techniques for Brain activity in Remote Health Monitoring Network

This paper proposes several efficient and less complex signal conditioning algorithms for brain signal enhancement in remote healthcare monitoring applications. In clinical environment during electroencephalogram (EEG) recording, several artifacts encounter and mask tiny features underlying brain wave activity. Especially in remote clinical monitoring, low computational complexity filters are desirable. Hence, in our paper, we propose various efficient and computationally simple adaptive noise cancelers for EEG enhancement. These schemes mostly employ simple addition and shift operations, and achieve considerable speed over the other conventional realizations. We have tested the proposed implementations on real brain waves recorded using emotive EEG system. Our experiments show that the proposed realization gives better performance compared with existing realizations in terms of signal to noise ratio, computational complexity, convergence rate, excess mean square error, misadjustment, and coherence

Opportunities to develop the professional role of community pharmacists in the care of patients with asthma: A cross-sectional study

© The Author(s) 2016. There are many indications in Australia and globally that asthma management is suboptimal. Ideally, patients need to proactively self-manage the condition with the support of health professionals. Community pharmacists are a highly accessible resource for patients but currently provide inconsistent services. General practitioners also face many barriers to the provision of chronic disease management for asthma patients. The aim of this research was to characterise patients with asthma who present to community pharmacy. The objective was to identify opportunities to develop the role of pharmacists in the context of the primary healthcare setting and in view of the needs of the patients they routinely encounter. The results of a comprehensive survey of 248 patients recruited from community pharmacies indicated there was discordance between patient perceptions of asthma control and actual asthma control. Almost half the patients surveyed had poorly controlled asthma, whereas almost three quarters perceived their asthma to be well or completely controlled. Fewer than 20% of patients were utilising written asthma action plans, and issues around quality use of medicines were identified. The significance of the incongruent perceptions regarding asthma control is that patients are unlikely to proactively seek intervention and support from healthcare professionals. Community pharmacists provide a significant opportunity to address these issues by direct intervention. There is scope to investigate pharmacists preparing written asthma action plans for patients, using software to monitor medication adherence and prescribe on-going medication. To maximise the potential of pharmacists, barriers to practice need to be identified and addressed