ABSTRACT
Objective: The present study was conducted to assess the effect of controlled deep breathing on psychomotor and higher mental functions. Methods: 100 normal healthy subjects (52 females and 48 males, age range - 18 to 25 years) participated in the study. Each subject acted as his or her own control. Six weeks course of controlled deep breathing i.e. 5 seconds of maximal inhalation followed by 5 seconds of maximal exhalation, once a day for ten minutes, six days a week was arranged. (i) Letter cancellation test (ii) Rapid fire arithmetic deviation test and (iii) Playing card test were conducted before and after six weeks of controlled deep breathing practice for evaluating psychomotor and higher mental functions. Results: No significant gender difference was observed on comparing baseline readings between female and male subjects. After six weeks of controlled deep breathing practice letter cancellation test time significantly reduced (P<0.001), rapid fire arithmetic deviation test and playing card test scores (P<0.001) significantly improved. Letter cancellation test score didn’t show improvement. Conclusion: The results suggest that a short, simple breathing practice can be helpful in improving cognitive processes.
ABSTRACT
Background: Endometriosis is one of the common gynaecological problems mostly affecting the women in reproductive age, associated with non menstrual pelvic pain and other symptoms and recurrence of endometriosis is common after medical or even surgical treatment. Objectives: This review is done to assess, whether conservative surgery and adjunctive hor- mone suppression therapy is more beneficiary than surgery alone in the treatment of sympto- matic endometriosis in term of pelvic pain and disease recurrence. Data sources and search method: Searched had been performed on Cochrane Central Register of Controlled trials, MEDLINE, PsycINFO. Journals and reference lists had been also searched. Review methods: Only Randomized controlled trials were included if they compared the effec- tiveness of hormone therapy following conservative surgery with surgery alone or surgery plus placebo in the treatment of symptomatic endometriosis. Outcome data had been analysed by using a Mantel-Haenzel Fixed-effect model to perform meta-analysis and results had been pre- sented as Risk ratio for binary data and Standardised Mean difference for continuous data with 95% confidence intervals. Results: Out of 8 trails pelvic pain was reported in 7 trials. No significant benefit was observed both in pelvic pain recurrence (RR= 0.75, 95% Cl- 0.54 to1.04) and disease recurrence (RR 0.89, 95% Cl 0.53 to 1.49) among 5 trials (481& 447 participants) in favour of surgery and adjunctive hormone therapy. On the other hand another 2 trials (280 participants) showed sig- nificant benefit in pelvic pain score (Std. Mean difference-0.80, 95%Cl -1.05 to -0.55) but con- siderable heterogeneity (I²= 96%) was observed. Conclusion: Women who received Post-surgical hormone therapy in the treatment of sympto- matic endometriosis had no advantages in respect of endometriosis and pelvic pain recurrence in compared with surgery alone.
ABSTRACT
Background & objectives: In India several models of health care delivery have been explored to increase access to skilled obstetric care in rural areas, where there is a lack of specialists and appropriate facilities. We present here an innovative and affordable approach to the delivery of antenatal and obstetric care provided by the Dangoria Charitable Trust (DCT) since 1979, twinning a not-for-profit hospital in rural Andhra Pradesh with a for-profit one in the capital Hyderabad. Methods: A retrospective observational study of a random sample of the deliveries performed from 1979 to 2009 by the Dangoria Charitable Trust, based on the maternity hospital birth register, was conducted. The profile of mothers, such as their age, parity and previous miscarriages, as well as type of delivery, gender and birth weight of the newborn, and frequency of stillbirths and in hospital deaths as they evolved over time were presented using simple descriptive methods. The risk of stillbirth and in hospital death over time was explored by logistic regression after allowance for selected factors. Results: From 1979 to 2009 the cumulative number of deliveries at the Narsapur maternity hospital was 9333, from a few dozens per year in the early 1980s to over 1000 in 2009. The number of primiparae significantly increased over time, while the percentage of low birth weight babies (less than 2.5 kg) did not change appreciably. Caesarean section increased significantly over time, from 8.6 per cent in the first decade to 20.3 per cent in the last. The risk of death (stillbirths and in hospital death) consistently decreased over time, reaching 15 per thousand in the last decade. The results of a logistic regression adjusted for potential confounders showed that low birth weight babies had 4 times the risk of dying as compared to those weighing 2.5 kg or above. Conclusions: Over the 30 year period the percentage of babies discharged alive from DCT improved considerably. Caesarean sections increased significantly from the first decade to the third decade. The model adopted by the DCT to improve maternal and child health in rural areas could be replicated in other rural parts of the country.