Pattern of microbes associated to keratitis in patients presenting at liaquat university hospital

OBJECTIVE: To determine and isolate causative organisms in the bacterial keratitis and their sensitivity and resistance to different antibacterial agents

MATERIAL AND METHODS: This was a prospective observational study containing a total of 80 patients [study participants] conducted from March 2011 to October 2012 at Ophthalmology Department of Liaquat University Eye Hospital Hyderabad. After taking informed consent, bacterial isolation procedures were done as: a corneal smear was taken after topical anesthesia, obtained by application of a drop of single dose unit; Proparacaine hydrochloride 0.5% [Alcon, Belgium]. A portion of each scrapping was examined microscopically for the presence of bacteria by using Gram staining and the isolated bacteria were tested for their sensitivity and resistance against the different antibiotics

RESULTS: In this study, male were found in the majority and mostly patients were from rural areas. Mostly causative organisms isolated from the bacterial keratitis were Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis among the gram positive organisms and Pseudomonas among the gram negative organisms, different types of the antibiotics as Cefazolin, Tobramycin, Ofloxacin, Ciprofloxacin and the Norfloxacin were tried and showed the sensitivity with the percentage of 80%,75.0%,78.75%,73.75% and 72.5%, respectively

CONCLUSION: Mostly causative organisms isolated from the bacterial keratitis were staphylococcus aureus and staphylococcus epidermidis among the gram positive organisms and pseudomonas among the gram negative organisms, different types of the antibiotics as Cefazolin, Tobramycin, Ofloxacin, Ciprofloxacin and the Norfloxacin were tried and showed good response regarding sensitivity

Electroencephalography changes during change blindness disorder

Background/objective: the electroencephalogram [EEG] is the process of recording electrical potentials produced by neurons in the brain. For understanding the neuro-physiological mechanism of various cognitive and neurological disorders, EEG has been proved a vital technique for many years. The change blindness which is incapability of brain to notice substantial visual changes is among such disorders. This study investigates the complexity in information process of EEG signals during the change blindness disorder using the two different measures called entropy and correlation dimension functions

Methods: the EEG data of change blindness disorder was recorded from 22 subjects while they were performing change detection and change blindness trials for two types of stimuli. These were [1] single stimulus followed by another matching stimulus, [2] single stimulus followed by another non-matching stimulus. The measure of complexity in recorded EEG was estimated using both correlation dimension and approximate entropy functions

Results: the results have shown significant decrease in values of approximate entropy and correlation dimension at frontal position of electrodes for change blindness trials

Conclusion: the neurophysiological implication of these results provide the possibility that the increase of brain complexity, which can be interpreted as increase of information process and integration, was not sustained in frontal position of brain during the change blindness disorder