ABSTRACT
Objective: The objective of this study is to evaluate the awareness of cross-infection control measures followed by DHCPs during the 5th wave of Covid-19 pandemic, Omicron variant in a government sector university of Karachi, Pakistan. Method(s): A Cross-sectional study was conducted from June till September 2022 at Sindh Institute of Oral Health Science during the 5th wave of Covid 19 pandemic, Omicron variant. Data was collected from 153 DHCPs from government sector university using a self-administered questionnaire, comprising of 20 closed ended question to assess the awareness and practice of cross infection protocols by DHCPs. Result(s): 98.7% of the participants were vaccinated against Covid 19. 96% of the participants used surgical gowns, face shields, and face masks as part of PPE during examining patients and while performing procedure. After treatment 99.3% of participants washed hands with hand wash, soap or used antiseptic solution. 77.1% of participants asked for Covid 19 test report and 68.6% of participants asked for proof of vaccination against covid 19 before treating patients. 96.1% of participants recommended disinfection of dental unit after every patient. 98% of participants changed glove after every patient. 88.2% of the participants said they would carry all elective and emergency procedures. Conclusion(s): The results of this study show that DHCPs practicing at government sector university have adequate knowledge regarding prevention of cross infection protocols and their importance to limit spread of infections. But their practice of prevention of cross infection during Covid 19 pandemic is not ideal as percentage of DHCPs requiring proof of vaccination or negative reports for Covid 19 were rather low and the percentage of DHCPs willing to carry elective procedures along with emergency ones was rather high.Copyright © 2023 Lahore Medical And Dental College. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Aim: The purpose of this research was to evaluate how Pakistanis feel about and understand COVID-19 Methods: To conduct the cross-sectional survey, we used Google forms to digitize a questionnaire with 17 items, which we then sent to a sample of the general population. Result(s): There was a total of 615 questionnaires collected from residents of Sindh Province. Most people 75.1% believe that the disease is spread through direct contact with an infected person or through inhaling air droplets expelled by a sick person while they sneeze or cough. When asked how they had avoided contracting COVID-19 over the preceding 14 days, the vast majority, 39.4%, reported consistently washing and sanitizing their hands. Other steps include not shaking hands with people 33.0% and staying at least one meter away from them (24.9%), not letting people share utensils at meals 38.1%, and masking their faces even when they don't feel sick 28.8%. Additionally, 56.1% of the respondents admitted that they had not taken any special precautions to protect themselves. It is duty of every citizen to obey the government's steps to avoid from COVID-19. Conclusion(s): In general, the people who took part knew a lot about the disease and felt good about taking precautions. The government and the public are taking effective steps to stop the spread of disease, but there is still a need for more awareness campaigns and knowledge of safe ways to stop the spread of disease.Copyright © 2023 Lahore Medical And Dental College. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Novel Pandemic COVID-19 led globally to severe health barriers and financial issues in different parts of the world. The forecast on COVID-19 infections is significant. Demeanor vital data will help in executing policies to reduce the number of cases efficiently. Filtering techniques are appropriate for dynamic model structures as it provide reasonable estimates over the recursive Bayesian updates. Kalman Filters, used for controlling epidemics, are valuable in knowing contagious infections. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) have generally been used for classification and forecasting problems. ANN models show an essential role in several successful applications of neural networks and are commonly used in economic and business studies. Long short-term memory (LSTM) model is one of the most popular technique used in time series analysis. This paper aims to forecast COVID-19 on the basis of ANN, KF, LSTM and SVM methods. We applied ANN, KF, LSTM and SVM for the COVID-19 data in Pakistan to find the number of deaths, confirm cases, and cases of recovery. The three methods were used for prediction, and the results showed the performance of LSTM to be better than that of ANN and KF method. ANN, KF, LSTM and SVM endorsed the COVID-19 data in closely all three scenarios. LSTM, ANN and KF followed the fluctuations of the original data and made close COVID-19 predictions. The results of the three methods helped significantly in the decision-making direction for short term strategies and in the control of the COVID-19 outbreak. © 2022 Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Patient satisfaction in health care describes the degree to which patients' needs 'meet their expectations and provide an acceptable standard of care'. Therefore, their opinion should be incorporated to understand factors affecting patients' satisfaction with the health-care setting. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has posed a significant challenge for the field of dentistry owing to its working characteristics. It is difficult for dentists to provide optimum satisfaction to patients receiving dental care with such changes proposed. A study aiming to evaluate the patient's satisfaction receiving treatment in the Department of Dentistry during the pandemic was planned. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional observational study from September to November 2020 was conducted. A self-administered printed questionnaire drafted in English/Gujarati was provided to 225 patients on completion of their dental treatment. Thirteen close-ended questions were included in determining the patient's satisfaction. Descriptive statistical analysis was used to describe the parameters of the questionnaire. The Chi-square test was used to find a significant association between parameters, and P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: About 74.3% of the participants were satisfied with dentist-patient communication. Positive response (80%) by patients where they were able to get an appointment as per their suitability and were informed in advance by the department if there were any changes. One hundred and sixty-eight (84%) patients responded that the waiting area was hygienic. One hundred and thirty-seven (68.5%) patients assured that their arrival was intimated to the respective dentist by supporting staff and that they were taken into an operatory for treatment within 10 min of arrival. Participants said that they were informed about the delay from their allotted appointment schedule with reasons;hence, better compliance (79%) was obtained from them. Conclusions: This cross-sectional study indicated that with proper communication, a positive response by participants over satisfaction was obtained even due to changing treatment patterns due to pandemic.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Self medication may be defined as the practice of use of medication for the treatment of any disease on their own without consulting concerned health care professional. If the practice is not correctly done due to lack of knowledge in students pursuing medical studies without evaluation by the trained medical professionals it can lead to ineffective treatment which can result in unnecessary expenses and drug dependence over a period of time. AIM: This study was conducted to find out self medication behaviour and its associated factors amongst dental students of Government Dental College and Hospital, Srinagar. Materials and methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted on 100 dental students and interns from Government Dental College And Hospital, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir between the month of September 2021 to November 2021 after ethical clearance was taken from said institution under order no GDC/Pedo/1677. A convenience sampling technique was used and survey consisting of 11 questions was be distributed amongst the dental students which included the questions of demographic variables and information related self medication with painkillers during the COVID times of 2020-2021 for any painful ailment and to evaluate awareness about side effects and loop holes of self medication. Data was collected and was statistically analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Guillain-Barrel Syndrome is an important cause of severe, acute weakness in children. Acute Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyradiculoneuropathy (AIDP) is the most common subtype. History of past infection was noticed in the majority of cases. In Wuhan China in late 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) originated and rapidly spread around the world. Case: We had 12 years old male child who was admitted with history sudden onset of lower limb weakness. He had history of contact with COVID-19 patient. Clinical and Laboratory finding suggesting of Guillain-Barre Syndrome. Discussion(s): This case is the first reported case of a child with GBS with past history acute SARS-CoV-2 infection one month back in our set up. GBS in a child has been reported associated with other forms of corona virus. The patient came with obvious symptomatology of GBS with symmetric ascending weakness with loss of reflexes. Conclusion(s): The relation between COVID-19 and GBS was demonstrated previously in case reports of adults with a different variety of GBS, like demyelinating, axonal, and Miller-Fisher in connection with COVID-19. Typical post infectious presentations have been seen in our report after one month. Copyright © 2022 Scientific Publishers of India. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Latinos are among the most heavily impacted populations by the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States due to intersectional barriers to care. Crowdsourcing open contests can be an effective means of community engagement but have not been well studied in Latino populations nor in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. The objectives of this study were to implement a crowdsourcing open contest to solicit a name for a social marketing campaign addressing COVID-19 for Latinos in Maryland, and evaluate the contest through mixed-methods analysis. METHODS: We conducted descriptive statistics of entries and votes, and demographics of participants. Submitted text was analyzed through inductive thematic analysis to understand community attitudes towards the COVID-19 pandemic. RESULTS: We received 74 entries within a brief 2-week period, limited by the urgency COVID-19 pandemic. The top 10 entries were chosen by a panel of community judges and the winner was decided by popular votes. We received 383 votes within 1 week. The most common themes were collective efficacy, self-efficacy, and perceived benefits of COVID-19 testing. We subsequently incorporated these themes into campaign advertisements, and these ended up being the highest performing ads. CONCLUSIONS: Crowdsourcing is an effective means of community engagement and an agile tool for guiding interventions to address COVID-19, including in populations impacted by healthcare disparities such as Latino communities.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Latino communities are disproportionately affected by COVID-19. In response, our Johns Hopkins based team of investigators and community health workers expanded access to free COVID-19 testing, and later vaccinations, through trusted community venues in Baltimore, MD. To promote these services, we developed a community-driven culturally congruent social marketing campaign and website. This work was supported by the NIH RADxUP (Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics - Underserved Populations) initiative. METHODS: The campaign name was chosen using a crowdsourcing open contest, evaluated by community judges and a popular vote. Campaign messaging was informed by prior focus groups and our community advisory board. The reach of the campaign was evaluated through online metrics (Google analytics and Facebook) as well as surveys of individuals obtaining COVID-19 testing or vaccination. Surveys were conducted over a 2-week period (6/25/21-7/9/21) at our main community-based venue, Sacred Heart Church. RESULTS: The campaign was named “Mejor Vive Sin Duda" ("Better to Live Without Doubt") based on the results of the crowdsourcing open contest, after which we developed the social marketing advertisements and website which launched in February 2021. Among 252 individuals surveyed in the 2-week period, 33% of respondents had seen or heard of the Mejor Vive Sin Duda campaign, with Facebook being the most popular means of campaign exposure. From March 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021, we received 9,100 unique visitors to the website and reached 254,910 people through paid social media advertisements. CONCLUSIONS: Social marketing campaigns present an opportunity to promote COVID-19 testing and vaccine uptake among Latino populations who face barriers to traditional healthcare settings. Community partnerships were integral to campaign success. Campaigns must be paired with accessible and culturally competent healthcare services to lead to equitable improvements in health outcomes.
ABSTRACT
Musculoskeletal disorders are prevalent in young adults in the present times. A major section of this age group are the students pursuing higher education. In the current pandemic situation due to COVID-19, the students have been forced into attending classes through online mode and so the infrastructure available at home may not be optimal ergonomically, leading to musculoskeletal discomfort amongst the students. In Interior Design course, the students are required to do practical work in a sitting position using the furniture available at home. They are also required to attend classes through computers, tablets and smartphones, which can also lead to musculoskeletal discomfort. As these students are exposed to the risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders, the present study was conducted with objectives (a) to gain insight into working methods and home workspace of the students, (b) to identify incidence of musculoskeletal discomfort experienced by interior design students during online learning and (c) to find out the perceived causes of musculoskeletal discomfort by the students. The sample of the study was 77 under-graduate students pursuing Interior Design course and data was collected using questionnaire. The findings of the study revealed that these students are in need of proper workspace and work environment at home, they need guidance in optimizing there working methods and developing proper work schedules and lastly, they need awareness regarding maintaining correct postures during sit-down work as well as corrective measures for optimizing their current work-station at home. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: The SARS-CoV-2 (COVID) pandemic threatened access to healthcare, raising concerns that patients were going underdiagnosed and undertreated. The aim of our study was to understand the impact of the COVID pandemic on diagnosis and surgical management of common urological conditions. METHODS: Using a large multi-center electronic health record network (TRINETx) consisting of 46 healthcare organizations, we conducted an epidemiological study investigating the number of patients newly diagnosed with common urological conditions and those undergoing urologic surgeries at yearly intervals from March 1st, 2016 to March 1st, 2021. Relevant international classification of diseases (ICD) codes used to identify urologic conditions are elaborated on in Table 1. Current procedural terminology (CPT) codes used to identify surgeries are detailed in Figure 1. We then determined the percentage of newly diagnosed patients who underwent surgery for each specific year. RESULTS: We saw a decrease in number of all urologic surgeries being performed during the initial year of the pandemic (Figure 1). From March 2020-2021, there was a >20% decrease in surgical case load for benign prostatic hyperplasia procedures (-29.5%), prostate biopsies (-30.1%), incontinence procedures (-33.6%), and vasectomies (-22.8%), compared to the preceding year. Radical cystectomies and orchiectomies saw the lowest decrease, -5.9% and -8.6%, respectively. A similar trend was seen in the number of individuals newly diagnosed with urologic conditions and percentage of patients undergoing surgical intervention. The lowest drops were seen with ureteral stent placements (-5.0%) and prostate biopsies (-3.1%). CONCLUSIONS: The number of people receiving urologic diagnoses and surgical case load for urologic procedures significantly reduced during the first year of the COVID pandemic. Providers should be aware of this healthcare disparity, and greater efforts made to identify these missed patients moving forward.
ABSTRACT
Movement disorders are relatively sparse amongst COVID-19 patients. However, in the setting of large number of COVID-19 cases, relatively rare acute to subacute onset, para-infectious or post-infectious movement disorders such as myoclonus and myoclonus-Ataxia with or without opsoclonus have increasingly become more evident. Our objective of writing this paper is to summarize the available evidence documenting new onset hyperkinetic movement disorders associated with COVID-19. Myoclonus is the most frequently reported movement disorder associated with COVID-19 alone or in combination with ataxia and tremors. Apart from isolated myoclonus, myoclonus with ataxia, opsoclonus myoclonus ataxia syndrome have been reported post COVID. Isolated cerebellar ataxia is the other most commonly described movement disorder post COVID. Tremors, Chorea and dystonia are rarely described hyperkinetic movement disorders in association with COVID. Treatments being offered for hyperkinetic movement disorders consists of symptomatic treatment with benzodiazepine, anti-seizure drugs, immunomodulatory treatment with steroids, intravenous immunoglobulin and rehabilitative therapies. In this review we summarize the neurological features, investigations, treatments, and outcomes of all the published cases of hyperkinetic movement disorders associated with COVID-19. © 2022 All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been associated with a myriad of potential neurological manifestations, with de novo movement disorders still being reported. There is growing concern about a possible new wave of neurological complications in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The objective of our review is to summarize all available evidence documenting new-onset movement disorders associated with COVID-19, with focus on hypokinetic movement disorders and their pathogenesis. We identified 66 new-onset movement disorder cases from using the PubMed and Google Scholar databases. Myoclonus was the most frequently reported movement disorder associated with COVID-19 alone or in combination with ataxia and tremor, while parkinsonism was the most notable movement disorder associated with the pandemic. To date, only eight cases of de novo parkinsonism associated with COVID-19 have been reported in the literature. Their exact pathophysiology is not well-understood but can include viral neuroinvasion-neurodegeneration, central nervous system-specific immune activation, vascular damage, systemic inflammation, autoimmune mechanisms, hypoxia, or metabolic disturbances. Although it is difficult to point out the specific relationship between SARS-CoV-2 and movement disorders, in this brief review, we unfold various potential plausible mechanisms responsible for the pathogenesis of movement disorders, with focus on hypokinetic movement disorders. Clinicians should closely monitor patients who have recovered from COVID-19 for the possibility of new-onset COVID-19-Associated movement disorders. Longitudinal follow-up studies are necessary to ascertain the long-Term neurological and neuropsychological consequences of the disease and the associated evolution of movement disorders. © 2022 All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Tic disorders are one of the most prevalent neurodevelopmental disorders and if unattended, can have other psychological impact. It can present as poor academic performance, poor concentration, low confidence, anxiety, depression and many others. This case series is about seven children diagnosed with tic disorder, as per Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) 5 criteria. These children underwent standard behavioural training module comprising of behavioural rewards, Habit Reversal Training (HRT), relaxation training, identification and management of emotions and social skills training;which was planned following case conceptualisation. Yale Global Tic Severity Scale (YGTSS) was used before starting therapy and while completing the therapy. Considering the severity of symptoms and distress caused by them, three children were started on medicine (clonidine) along with therapy. Same therapy module was provided online for those children (three) who were not able to come for direct training due to geographic distance and Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-2019) pandemic restrictions. All the seven children showed favourable improvement in terms of severity and improvement in the co-morbid conditions. All of them responded to the individualised treatment protocol and showed difference in pre (mean=38) and post (mean=12) total tic severity score suggesting response to treatment. Among them, two children scored zero. This case series demonstrates the application of behavioural therapy including varied strategies as per the individual case conceptualisation.
ABSTRACT
The fast expansion of the COVID-19 epidemic has revealed the shortcomings of current healthcare institutions in dealing with public emergency situations. One of the big reasons of Covid-19 spread is the lack of standard track and trace mechanisms in healthcare infrastructures. Furthermore, throughout the epidemic, the transmission of disinformation has accelerated, and existing platforms lacking capability of verifying the veracity of information, resulting to social unrest and illogical conduct. Therefore, building a track and trace system is critical to ensuring that data collected by the government and the public entities is accurate and dependable. It is obvious that implementing state-of-the-art predictive models like Artificial Neural Network and Blockchain-based traceable mechanisms can help to prevent the spreads of the new variants. In this paper, we proposed a Blockchain based traceable model to track and trace the infected cases so to help an effective planning to prevent the spread. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Right ventricular (RV) dysfunction after cardiac surgery presents a significant challenge. Epoprostenol (EPO) is a pulmonary vasodilator that can be administered via inhalation and is often used in patients with post-operative RV dysfunction. However, the effects of EPO on RV performance have not been well studied. Furthermore, EPO is generally contraindicated in WHO Group 2 pulmonary hypertension. The purpose of this study is to describe the hemodynamic consequences of weaning inhaled epoprostenol (iEPO) in post-operative RV dysfunction and potentially identify any predictive markers for successful weaning. Methods: This is a single-center case series of patients receiving iEPO after cardiac surgery identified by convenience sampling. Inclusion criteria included post-cardiac surgery patients, >18 years, and receiving iEPO for RV dysfunction. Exclusion criteria included pregnancy, open chest, SARS-COV-2 pneumonia, left ventricular assist device use, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation use, heart transplantation, or receiving iEPO for refractory hypoxia. A paired two sample t-test compared the hemodynamic parameters collected pre and post iEPO weaning. Results: EPO weaning was associated with a decrease in mean pulmonary artery pulsatility index (PAPi) (pre-wean 1.81 vs post-wean 1.57, p=0.04) and increase in pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP) (46.5mmHg vs 55.1mmHg, p=0.01). Cardiac index and right atrial pressure were not significantly different (p=0.35 and p=0.26 respectively). Case 5 had EPO weaning failure and had the lowest baseline PAPi in the cohort. Conclusion: iEPO weaning is associated with dynamic changes in PASP and PAPI in post-operative cardiac surgery patients. This finding supports the conceptual role of iEPO in improving post-operative RV-PA coupling and RV performance. Baseline PAPi may be a predictive marker to guide the weaning process. However, larger cohorts are needed to confirm these findings.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a global health crisiswhich has caused a significant healthcare burden. Fever, cough and dyspnea are the classicsymptoms of COVID-19 but emerging literature has reported diarrhea, vomiting, loss ofappetite and other gastrointestinal symptoms (GI) as well. In this meta-analysis, we evaluatedthe association of diarrhea, vomiting and anorexia with outcomes in COVID-19 hospitalizedpatients.Methods: Data from observational studies describing GI symptoms and outcomes of COVID-19 hospitalized patients from December 1, 2019 till June 30, 2020 was extracted followingMOOSE guidelines with a consensus of four independent reviewers. Adverse outcomes weredefined as admission to the intensive care unit (ICU), oxygen saturation <90%, invasivemechanical ventilation (IMV), severe disease and in-hospital mortality. Data was analyzedusing Review Manager 5.4. The odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95%CI) wereobtained and forest plots were created using random-effects models.Results: Out of 24 studies with 13,741 confirmed COVID-19 patients, 17 studies (4087patients), 5 studies (897 patients) and 5 studies (1751 patients) provided data on COVID-19 hospital outcomes and GI symptoms of diarrhea, anorexia and vomiting respectively. In patients with poor outcomes, the prevalence of diarrhea was 13.3%(187/1398), anorexia37%(172/464) and vomiting 7.6%(67/883). In meta-analysis, patients with anorexia(OR:4.27;95%CI:2.73–6.67;p<0.00001) and vomiting (OR:1.85;95%CI:1.13–3.05;p=0.02)had higher odds of poor outcomes compared to better outcomes with 0% heterogeneity (p=0.68 and p=0.91) respectively. Patients with diarrhea had no significant association withpoor outcomes (OR:1.04 (95%CI:0.75–1.44;p=0.81) with 23% heterogeneity (p=0.19).Conclusion: Our meta-analysis suggests that COVID-19 patients with anorexia and vomitinghad higher risk of poor outcomes and disease severity. Future studies should focus onwhether identification of GI invasion along with fecal PCR testing will help in early triageof high risk patients and improve outcomes.(Figure Presented)Figure 1: Forest Plot of Anorexia with Outcome in COVID-19 hospitalizations(Figure Presented)Figure 2: Forest Plot of Vomiting with Outcome in COVID-19 hospitalizations(Figure Presented)Figure 3: Forest Plot of Diarrhea with Outcome in COVID-19 hospitalizations