RESUMO
Objectives: Chronic illness and functional decline threaten elderly well-being. “Perceived Wellness Survey (PWS),” which measures psychosocial, physical, and intellectual well-being, may be appropriate for assessing the wellness of the geriatric population. This work has been planned to find out the validity and test-retest reliability of a PWS as a wellness-measuring tool for community-based elderly people. Materials and methods: This observational study was undertaken in the community was undertaken to assess PWS in 60 elderly individuals (?65 years). The validity of PWS was tested using Pearson product-moment correlation test. For test-retest reliability, the internal consistency of PWS was tested by Cronbach’s alpha test. Result: Around 60 individuals ?65 years (mean 69.45 ± 4.27 years), 48 males were selected by convenient sampling. Pearson’s correlation showed psychological, emotional, and physical subscale scores had a very strong positive relationship (0.734, 0.703, and 0.722, respectively) with a composite score of PWS score. Spiritual, intellectual, and social subscales showed a strong positive relationship with the composite PWS score. Test-retest variability between observations for subscales was ?0.8, which showed good reliability, except for the physical subscale, which showed unacceptable reliability. Conclusion: Perceived Wellness Survey (PWS) is an effective, feasible, highly reliable, and valid measure as a clinical assessment tool for assessing wellness in the elderly population.
RESUMO
The very old traditional Indian herbal medicinal heritage flow in two streams –one is codified classical stream and the other one is the non-codified or the oral folk .The codified system is more institutionalized and is basically of four types - Ayurveda, Sidha, Unani and Gsorigpa.It is interesting that the non- codified systems are more popularly known as Local Health Tradition (LHT) though it is informal it exists among various ethnic and traditional communities of India more particularly in North East India of which the study area i. e. Western Assam being a part is found to be rich in such traditional herbal system of health care practices. Western Assam is located at the extreme western part of Assam it extends from 89049/20// E longitude to 91048/16// longitude and 25027/ N latitude to 26054// latitude covering lower Brahmaputra valley. For primary data collection the fields were visited frequently meeting the local people specially these people who are well experienced with the knowledge of local health practices through interview during 2012- 2013. During data collection it was found that there are many knowledgeable persons in the field of herbal health care practices who often practice their medicinal systems to cure various types of diseases like piles, fever ,stomach disorder, eye problem, bone problem including some minor bodily disorders .But in this paper importance is given to one of the very dangerous more common disease that is Jaundice which is caused by an excess of a waste product bilirubin in blood after the removal of iron from hemoglobin ;this excess bilirubin may leak out into surrounding tissues saturating them with this yellow substance. Here 5 main herbal recipes are analyzed and presented in a very lucid scientific way. Thus the herbal preparations presented here practiced by various knowledgeable persons in herbal medicines (known as Ojha, Kobiraj, Bej, Healers etc.) which are often found very active preparations against Jaundice. People from various parts come to these persons and found utilized in curing this very dangerous disease. Traditionally they are practicing their knowledge generation by generation as means of their livelihood besides serving mass people at the time of distress.
RESUMO
RSV infection continues to be a major cause of morbidity and mortality throughout the world. Despite advances in the understanding of its pathogenesis, limited progress has been made in prevention and treatment of RSV infection. Based on the experiences thus far it seems that control of RSV infection will be a difficult and complex task.