Mothers both in the clinics and at home do not receive the type of support they need from health workers, when their children fall sick. The majority of mothers are able to manage the scarce commodities such as food, health care and other basic needs in a poverty situation, quite effectively, the exceptions being during periods of stress. The odds that the mother has to struggle with in a poor environment, facing various types of discriminations, and later in her husband's household are analysed. A few examples are given about an improvement in mother's primary health care management skills. The "grass root" health workers should be available locally when the mothers need their help. The health workers should encourage the positive traditions prevailing. All effort should be made to increase the knowledge base of the husband as well as the peer group, so that the mothers continues to receive support in bringing about improvements.

Child↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Evaluation and progression analysis of pulmonary tuberculosis from digital chest radiographs.

Pulmonary tuberculosis is one of the most common infections in the third world countries. We propose a method for automated evaluation and progression analysis of this disease by processing a sequence of digital chest radiographs. The presence of radiological features characteristic to pulmonary tuberculosis is detected within the regions of interest using suitable image processing and pattern recognition techniques. The detected features are then quantified to evaluate the extent of the disease. The measures are evaluated for a sequence of radiographs of a patient and are normalized with respect to rib size measures. Temporal changes in these normalized measures indicate the progression of the disease during the period in which the sequence of radiographs is obtained. The details of the proposed technique and results of analysis of a number of tuberculous patients are given in the paper.

Clavicle↗

PubMedDate not supplied

A sequential scanning of the immune efficiency in astrocytoma (Grade I to Grade Iii), meningioma and secondary glioma patients with and without therapeutic scheduling.

PURPOSE: Glioma induces immune suppression. However, data revealing the immune status in glioma patients with sequential therapeutic interventions is missing. Thus, the study aims at evaluating the sequential immune status of glioma bearing patients (Astrocytoma Grade I to Grade III) receiving conventional therapeutic measures. The results were compared with the immune status of metastatic secondary glioma and meningioma patients where there is minimal immune suppression and the effect of therapeutic intervention on the above score. METHODS: Functional immune parameters of peripheral blood lymphocytes were assayed by CD2 receptors enumeration through E-rosetting and lymphocyte cytotoxicity assay and assessing the generation of reactive oxygen species by NBT assay of peripheral blood macrophages in patient groups bearing Astrocytoma (Grade I to Grade III), meningioma and secondary glioma. RESULTS: Patients bearing Astrocytoma (all 3 grades) showed maximum immune suppression as compared to the normal subjects, diseased meningioma controls, and secondary glioma. Therapeutic interventions viz. radiotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy after surgery and chemotherapy could not recover the suppressed activity of the CD2 bearing lymphocytes and that of peripheral blood macrophages. However, therapeutic scheduling could recover the functional activity of the CD8 bearing lymphocytes and the CD56 NK cells from that of tumor bearing patients. CONCLUSION: Astrocytoma and not meningioma is capable of causing immunesuppression. As the tumor progresses from Grade I to Grade III, a linear reduction in the functional efficacy of immunocytes is seen to occur. Radiotherapy, surgery, and chemotherapy also induces an inhibitory effect towards the host immune system. The inhibitory effect of tumor as well as of therapy were mainly directed towards the CD2 bearing lymphocyte population and the peripheral blood macrophage population.

Antineoplastic Agents↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Brevity is an essential skill in keeping useful patient records.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Guidelines as Topic↗