Awareness of foot care among patients with diabetes attending a tertiary care hospital.

Background. The prevalence of diabetes in India is rising. It is also occurring at a younger age. Ulcers on the foot in patients with diabetes are a common cause of amputations and are largely preventable. We assessed the awareness of foot care among patients with diabetes attending a tertiary care hospital in northern India and whether this varied with the level of healthcare availed, i.e. primary, secondary or tertiary. Methods. A scored questionnaire was designed based on foot care practices advised by the American Diabetes Association as part of the national diabetes education programme. It was administered to 400 patients and a total foot care score was calculated and correlated with various variables. Results. Only 50 of 400 patients (12.5%) had received previous foot care advice from healthcare professionals, and 193 (48.2%), 28 (7%) and 179 (44.8 %) patients were being taken care of by primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare systems, respectively. Almost one-quarter of patients were uneducated. The mean foot care score in all three groups was 5 of a maximum of 14, which was poor. Conclusion. The awareness of foot care among people with diabetes is low among those attending all levels of healthcare: primary, secondary and tertiary. It is necessary to educate people about foot care, lack of which will lead to a huge financial and health burden due to preventable complications of diabetes.

Prenatal music stimulation facilitates the postnatal functional development of the auditory as well as visual system in chicks (Gallus domesticus).

Rhythmic sound or music is known to improve cognition in animals and humans. We wanted to evaluate the effects of prenatal repetitive music stimulation on the remodelling of the auditory cortex and visual Wulst in chicks. Fertilized eggs (0 day) of white leghorn chicken (Gallus domesticus) during incubation were exposed either to music or no sound from embryonic day 10 until hatching. Auditory and visual perceptual learning and synaptic plasticity, as evident by synaptophysin and PSD-95 expression, were done at posthatch days (PH) 1, 2 and 3. The number of responders was significantly higher in the music stimulated group as compared to controls at PH1 in both auditory and visual preference tests. The stimulated chicks took significantly lesser time to enter and spent more time in the maternal area in both preference tests. A significantly higher expression of synaptophysin and PSD-95 was observed in the stimulated group in comparison to control at PH1-3 both in the auditory cortex and visual Wulst. A significant inter-hemispheric and gender-based difference in expression was also found in all groups. These results suggest facilitation of postnatal perceptual behaviour and synaptic plasticity in both auditory and visual systems following prenatal stimulation with complex rhythmic music.