Clinical interpretations of the effectiveness of changes in body position during aerobic fitness after neurologic injury.

The purpose is to estimate the effectiveness of electrocardiograms during resting and active participation by the differentiation between the electrical activity of the heart while standing and sitting in a resting state. The concern is to identify the electrocardiogram parameters that did not show significant changes within these positions. The electrocardiogram parameters can be considered to be a standard marker for medically compromised patients. The electrocardiogram is recorded in the standing and sitting positions focusing on healthy participants using standard electrode placement of lead-I. Combined lead-I patterns (camel-hump or ST-segment prolongation) are usually seen in neurologic injury or hypothermia patients. The pairwise comparisons of a year data are about 454,400 cycles of sitting and 493,470 cycles of standing data. Thus, it is essential to quantify the nature and magnitude of changes seen in the electrocardiogram with a change of posture from sitting to standing in a healthy individual. This makes the findings of electrocardiogram analysis in this paper interesting in which some parameters (i.e., camel-hump patterns in lead-I) are helpful for clinical interpretations and could be suggestive of neurologic injury.

Awareness, knowledge and attitudes towards epilepsy among rural populations in East Coast Peninsular Malaysia: a preliminary exploration.

This study was carried out to gauge the preliminary insight regarding epilepsy among the rural society. The purposes of this study were: (1) to determine general level of awareness, knowledge and attitudes (AKA) towards epilepsy among rural communities, (2) to compare the AKA level based on socio-demographic characteristics and (3) to investigate rural cohort's perception of the best epilepsy treatment, preference for epilepsy information delivery and preference for mode of transportation to seek medical treatment. This prospective, cross sectional study included a sample of 615 rural residents enrolled via cluster sampling in East Coast region of Peninsular Malaysia (mean age=41.6+/-18.02, female=56.6%, married=65.5%, Malay=94.0%, monthly income < or = RM 500=56.9%). The Total AKA level was generally low (2.66+/-0.7). Gender-wise no significant difference was shown regarding AKA level (p>0.05). However, respondents with higher education significantly possessed better attitudes and higher Total AKA level compared to those with lower education level (p<0.001). Employed respondents reported significantly more favourable attitudes than unemployed respondents (p=0.011). Additionally, higher income rural cohorts possessed both significantly better attitudes and better AKA. These rural communities perceived modern medicine as the best epilepsy treatment (56.60%), preferred to obtain direct epilepsy-related information from health personnel (60.4%) and chose to use their own car to seek medical treatment in hospital (76.30%). The outcomes of this preliminary study signified the need to devise a dedicated epilepsy education program for implementation among rural residents. Increased AKA level in the society could enhance the people's acceptance, reduce stigmatisation and improve health-related quality of life (HRQoL) for epilepsy patients and their family.