A cross sectional study of prevalence of depression among patients with cerebrovascular accident

Background: Depression is one of the most common neuropsychiatric condition in patients with stroke. Early identification of depression for stroke patients can improve the outcome leading to better quality of life. Prevalence and determinants of post stroke depression are highly variable and there is paucity of data in Indian literature.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at neurology department of Saveetha Medical College, Chennai. All patients with history of stroke within past one month attending neurology department who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were taken up for the study after getting consent. Neurological examination and CT brain findings were noted with the site of lesion. All patients were evaluated for depression using ICD 10 criteria. MADRS score was used to assess the severity of depression. Chi square was used for statistical analysis.Results: The mean age of subjects in the study was 56.54±10.82 years. The prevalence of depression among patients with stroke in our study was 75.8%. Among classifying those with depression based on severity using MADRS score, 35% had mild depression and 65% had moderate depression. There was no severe depression in our sample. There was no statistically significant difference between prevalence of depression based on side of lesion.Conclusions: In this study the prevalence of depression among patients with cerebrovascular accident was found to be 75.8%. From this study we learn that the prevalence of depression in patients with stroke is high and this shows that regular screening of patients with stroke for depression might help in earlier detection and management of depression

Prevalence of dog erythrocyte antigen (DEA) 1 amongst the dog blood donors at Tamil Nadu veterinary and animal sciences university animal blood bank (TABB), India

The study of dog blood groups has increased in the last years. Inherited antigens on the RBC surface define blood groups. There are 7 blood groups in the canine DEA system. Amongst these blood groups, DEA 1 blood group is highly immunogenic and consequently has greater clinical importance. A retrospective study was conducted in 125 purebred and mongrel dog blood donors at the TANUVAS Animal Blood Bank, Madras Veterinary College, Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Chennai, India during the period from January 2010 to January 2011. Donor dogs were screened and typed for the presence of DEA 1 using the monoclonal antibody kit. The prevalence of DEA 1 was 61.6%. The prevalence of DEA 1 dogs in India agrees with most of the data reported in the literature

Disparities between research attention and burden in liver diseases: implications on uneven advances in pharmacological therapies in Europe and the USA

Effective oral therapies for hepatitis B and C have recently been developed, while there are no approved pharmacological therapies for alcoholic and non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases (ALD and NAFLD). We hypothesise that fewer advances in fatty liver diseases could be related to disparities in research attention

A study on Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus mastitis in dairy cows

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) poses a serious problem in dairy animals suffering from mastitis. The study was carried out to evaluate the incidence of Methicillin resistant S. aureus from clinical mastitis milk samples and their antibiotic resistance profile and characterised with respect to the molecular features that contributed to the resistance in these pathogens. Isolation and identification of Methicillin resistant S. aureus were performed from acute clinical mastitis samples. The isolates were tested using agar disc diffusion method for their antimicrobial susceptibility and modified resazurin assay micro dilution technique for MIC to 8 different antimicrobial drugs. A total of 235 clinical mastitis milk samples from dairy cows were cultured for incidence of S. aureus. Methicillin resistant S. aureus was isolated from a total of 12 (44.25%) of the 116 S. aureus samples. Based on the antimicrobial sensitivity and MIC results, MRSA isolates were found sensitive to gentamicin, enrofloxcain, amoxicillin+sulbactam, ceftriaxone and resistant to amoxicillin, oxytetracycline, penicillin G and oxacillin. Most of MRSA isolates were found to be multi-drug resistant. MRSA alert kit test and mecA and blaZ target gene PCR were found to be useful in the confirmation of MRSA

ASSESSMENT OF FOOD AND NUTRIENT INTAKE OF COMMUNITIES ACROSS THREE AGRO-BIODIVERSITY HOTSPOTS IN INDIA

Balanced and adequate nutrition is important in improving the health of the community in general and of vulnerable groups in particular. Assessment of the nutritional status of a community is important for development of implementation strategies and suitable policies. Dietary assessment indicates whether intake of macro and micro nutrient are adequate. Anthropometric measurements and comparisons of nutrient intakes with reference values are easy and non-invasive, economical and sufficiently reliable methods for the determination of nutritional status. The present study uses micro-level data drawn from 24 hours recall diet survey to calculate the mean food and nutrient intake by communities in three agro-biodiversity hotspots. The 24 hours recall diet survey was carried out among households in three study locations during June to November 2013 among the project intervention and non-intervention groups. Information on age, sex, physiological status, physical activity of the household members who took meals during the previous 24 hours was collected for computing consumption unit. The result shows that cereals are the chief source of energy in the study locations contributing 70-80% of the daily energy intake. Mean intake of green leafy vegetable are negligible in the study locations. The intake of sugar and jaggery among the intervention group of Meenangadi is 48% higher than recommended dietary intake, while in the non-intervention group it is 28% higher; and 20% higher among the nonintervention group in the Kolli Hills. The intake of vitamin A is the lowest among other nutrients across the internvention and non-intervention groups in the study locations

Sustainable Energy Consumption Monitoring in Residential Settings

The continuous growth of energy needs and the fact that unpredictable energy demand is mostly served by unsustainable (i.e. fossil-fuel) power generators have given rise to the development of Demand Response (DR) mechanisms for flattening energy demand. Building effective DR mechanisms and user awareness on power consumption can significantly benefit from fine-grained monitoring of user consumption at the appliance level. However, installing and maintaining such a monitoring infrastructure in residential settings can be quite expensive. In this paper, we study the problem of fine-grained appliance power-consumption monitoring based on one house-level meter and few plug-level meters. We explore the trade-off between monitoring accuracy and cost, and exhaustively find the minimum subset of plug-level meters that maximize accuracy. As exhaustive search is time- and resource-consuming, we define a heuristic approach that finds the optimal set of plug-level meters without utilizing any other sets of plug-level meters. Based on experiments with real data, we found that few plug-level meters - when appropriately placed - can very accurately disaggregate the total real power consumption of a residential setting and verified the effectiveness of our heuristic approach

Natriuretic peptides and integrated risk assessment for cardiovascular disease. an individual-participant-data meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Guidelines for primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases focus on prediction of coronary heart disease and stroke. We assessed whether or not measurement of N-terminal-pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) concentration could enable a more integrated approach than at present by predicting heart failure and enhancing coronary heart disease and stroke risk assessment. METHODS: In this individual-participant-data meta-analysis, we generated and harmonised individual-participant data from relevant prospective studies via both de-novo NT-proBNP concentration measurement of stored samples and collection of data from studies identified through a systematic search of the literature (PubMed, Scientific Citation Index Expanded, and Embase) for articles published up to Sept 4, 2014, using search terms related to natriuretic peptide family members and the primary outcomes, with no language restrictions. We calculated risk ratios and measures of risk discrimination and reclassification across predicted 10 year risk categories (ie, <5%, 5% to <7·5%, and ≥7·5%), adding assessment of NT-proBNP concentration to that of conventional risk factors (ie, age, sex, smoking status, systolic blood pressure, history of diabetes, and total and HDL cholesterol concentrations). Primary outcomes were the combination of coronary heart disease and stroke, and the combination of coronary heart disease, stroke, and heart failure. FINDINGS: We recorded 5500 coronary heart disease, 4002 stroke, and 2212 heart failure outcomes among 95 617 participants without a history of cardiovascular disease in 40 prospective studies. Risk ratios (for a comparison of the top third vs bottom third of NT-proBNP concentrations, adjusted for conventional risk factors) were 1·76 (95% CI 1·56-1·98) for the combination of coronary heart disease and stroke and 2·00 (1·77-2·26) for the combination of coronary heart disease, stroke, and heart failure. Addition of information about NT-proBNP concentration to a model containing conventional risk factors was associated with a C-index increase of 0·012 (0·010-0·014) and a net reclassification improvement of 0·027 (0·019-0·036) for the combination of coronary heart disease and stroke and a C-index increase of 0·019 (0·016-0·022) and a net reclassification improvement of 0·028 (0·019-0·038) for the combination of coronary heart disease, stroke, and heart failure. INTERPRETATION: In people without baseline cardiovascular disease, NT-proBNP concentration assessment strongly predicted first-onset heart failure and augmented coronary heart disease and stroke prediction, suggesting that NT-proBNP concentration assessment could be used to integrate heart failure into cardiovascular disease primary prevention

Assessment of Food and Nutrient Intake of Communities across Three Agro-biodiversity Hotspots in India

Balanced and adequate nutrition is important in improving the health of the community in general and of vulnerable groups in particular. Assessment of the nutritional status of a community is important for development of implementation strategies and suitable policies. Dietary assessment indicates whether intake of macro and micro nutrient are adequate. Anthropometric measurements and comparisons of nutrient intakes with reference values are easy and non-invasive, economical and sufficiently reliable methods for the determination of nutritional status. The present study uses micro-level data drawn from 24 hours recall diet survey to calculate the mean food and nutrient intake by communities in three agro-biodiversity hotspots. The 24 hours recall diet survey was carried out among households in three study locations during June to November 2013 among the project intervention and non-intervention groups. Information on age, sex, physiological status,physical activity of the household members who took meals during the previous 24 hours was collected for computing consumption unit. The result shows that cereals are the chief source of energy in the study locations contributing 70-80% of the daily energy intake. Mean intake of green leafy vegetable are negligible in the study locations. The intake of sugar and jaggery among the intervention group of Meenangadi is 48% higher than recommended dietary intake, while in the non-intervention group it is 28% higher; and 20% higher among the non-intervention group in the Kolli Hills. The intake of vitamin A is the lowest among other nutrients across the internvention and non-intervention groups in the study locations

Assessment of Food and Nutrient Intake of Communities across Three Agro-biodiversity Hotspots in India

Balanced and adequate nutrition is important in improving the health of the community in general and of vulnerable groups in particular. Assessment of the nutritional status of a community is important for development of implementation strategies and suitable policies. Dietary assessment indicates whether intake of macro and micro nutrient are adequate. Anthropometric measurements and comparisons of nutrient intakes with reference values are easy and non-invasive, economical and sufficiently reliable methods for the determination of nutritional status. The present study uses micro-level data drawn from 24 hours recall diet survey to calculate the mean food and nutrient intake by communities in three agro-biodiversity hotspots. The 24 hours recall diet survey was carried out among households in three study locations during June to November 2013 among the project intervention and non-intervention groups. Information on age, sex, physiological status,physical activity of the household members who took meals during the previous 24 hours was collected for computing consumption unit. The result shows that cereals are the chief source of energy in the study locations contributing 70-80% of the daily energy intake. Mean intake of green leafy vegetable are negligible in the study locations. The intake of sugar and jaggery among the intervention group of Meenangadi is 48% higher than recommended dietary intake, while in the non-intervention group it is 28% higher; and 20% higher among the non-intervention group in the Kolli Hills. The intake of vitamin A is the lowest among other nutrients across the internvention and non-intervention groups in the study locations