XoRehab: IoT Enabled Wheelchair based Lower Limb Rehabilitation System.

IoT in healthcare brought a technological revolution in rehabilitation, enabling the patients to get rehabilitation in the comfort of their home, while being supervised remotely by the professionals. IoT enabled rehabilitation ensures a best possible way towards recovery, without inflicting further injuries. It also allows customization of rehabilitation plan based on the patient profile and progress, while helping in defining their personalised milestones. The main contribution of this paper is a novel wheelchair based IoT enabled 'XoRehab", exoskeleton for rehabilitation; a device for lower limb, with a backrest mechanism. This involves development of a well-trained robot based on electromechanical actuation with micro-controller and feedback system, which can replace the physical trainer or physiotherapist. This autonomous device will control speed of flexion and extension on patient's limbs to improve efficiency of the treatment. It also provides repetitive motion of flexion and extension. The edge system design to upload local rehabilitation data and logs to the cloud server is presented. We propose an opensource Elasticsearch Logstash Kibana (ELK) stack for providing the cloud services, which is a scalable solution. The design of the developed prototype has been discussed in detail along with the functional test results.Clinical Relevance- The introduction of well-trained exoskeleton in the rehabilitation process, gives a high level of performance in patient recovery, and it contributes to expeditious restoration of their joints and improvement in muscle and nerve system.

Placebo hypoalgesic and nocebo hyperalgesic effects in post-extraction patients-A cross sectional study.

Background and objectives: Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience that affects people's physical, mental, and social health. Patients at times present with postoperative pain with no clinical signs after the surgical dental procedures and adequate pharmacological management. This can be due to the amplified emotional component of the individual in their postoperative period. Hence, this study aimed to estimate the association between placebo, nocebo effects, and postoperative pain associated with tooth extraction procedures. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 301 patients attending the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery for tooth extraction. Preoperatively, the expected postoperative pain score was recorded using the "Numerical Rating Scale" (NRS), Anxiety and Depression were assessed using the "Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale" (HADS), and Patients' expectancy regarding the treatment outcome was assessed using the "Credibility Expectancy Questionnaire" (CEQ). Observed postoperative pain scores at the 6th hour, 24th hour, and peak pain score of the day were recorded using the NRS. Results: There were statistically significant associations (p < 0.05) found between expected and observed postoperative pain, preoperative anxiety and observed postoperative pain, preoperative depression and observed postoperative pain, placebo, nocebo effects, and observed postoperative pain. Interpretation and conclusion: Our study showed a strong association between these variables suggesting that post-extraction pain is a multifaceted condition wherein pain expectation, preoperative anxiety, depression, and expectancy regarding the treatment outcome should be scrutinized before the extraction procedure.

HOXD10 expression in human breast cancer.

Breast cancer is the most frequent malignancy among females. In this study, we analyzed the expression pattern of a homeobox gene (HOXD10) in human invasive ductal breast cancer tissues and normal tissues. With the ACTB (ß-actin) gene as a reference, HOXD10 was detected in 60 breast cancer tissues by using the quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) method with the Relative Expression Software Tool (REST). We found that the HOXD10 expression level was significantly different between cancerous and normal tissues. Downregulation of the HOXD10 gene expression was examined in high-grade samples. Low-grade tissue showed no difference from the control group. HOXD10 expression was reduced in grade II breast carcinoma tissues. This data reveal that misexpression of the HOXD10 gene supports the development and involvement in breast cancer and may serve as a potential biomarker for the diagnosis of human ductal invasive breast carcinoma.

Prevalence of RET/PTC1 and RET/PTC3 gene rearrangements in Chennai population and its correlation with clinical parameters.

Thyroid cancer is one of the most common endocrine disorders in the world. In India, about 42 million people suffer from various thyroid disorders. However, based on population-based cancer registry (PBCR) and Chennai cancer registry, thyroid cancer is emerging as a common cancer particularly in Chennai. Papillary thyroid carcinoma is considered as the most prevalent cancer constituting about 80-85 % of thyroid malignancies. Rearranged during transfection (RET)/papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) gene rearrangements are one of the major genetic alterations found in papillary thyroid carcinoma. This present study aims at estimating the frequency of RET/PTC1 and RET/PTC3 gene rearrangements in Chennai population and investigating the correlation between RET/PTC gene expressions with clinical parameters. Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tumor tissues obtained from 30 patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma were analyzed. Initially, to differentiate classic and follicular variants of papillary thyroid carcinoma samples, immunohistochemistry was performed. Thereafter, total RNA was isolated, and quantitative evaluation of RET/PTC1 and RET/PTC3 gene rearrangements by real-time PCR was performed. Chi-square test was performed to understand the correlation between positive and negative mutations of RET/PTC messenger RNA (mRNA) expression with clinical parameters. RET/PTC3 gene rearrangements were identified in 26/30 (86.67 %) cases, and none of the patient in our series had RET/PTC1 gene rearrangements. There was no statistically significant difference observed between positive and negative mutations of RET/PTC3 mRNA expression with clinic pathological parameters. Our results indicate that RET/PTC3 gene rearrangements are the most prevalent form of rearrangements in PTCs of Chennai population.