Innovative Journal of Medical and Health Sciences

India has the dubious distinction of being the heart disease (HD) and diabetes capital of the world. HD is the leading cause of death and the worst part is that it strikes Indians during the prime years of their life. The HD is a largely preventable disease and if appropriate lifestyle measures, medication and appropriate physical exercises are taken early enough one may never need to undergo the emotional turmoil. Cardiac Rehabilitation (CR) program is for those who have already suffered a cardiac event, such as a heart attack, bypass surgery or angioplasty. CR is an intervention that has a well-documented history of benefiting patients. These benefits include improvements in functional capacity, quality of life, and morbidity and mortality. Reductions in morbidity and mortality with CR are equivalent to many of the best available pharmacologic and invasive interventions.The CR is Class-I-level recommendation (signifying a treatment that should be performed or administered) for referral to CR in those groups of patients mentioned above. Yet CR participation and referral has not increased over the last decade; a time during which invasive interventions (largely PCI) have skyrocketed, despite the observation that PCI does not improve outcomes.Firstly, the reason was cost. The government schemes like Yeshaswini, BPL, APL card and the insurance companies needs to include the CR program at a cost so that all type of cardiac patients can benefit which is now lagging. The benefits of CR are greatly under-appreciated in both the public and the medical community. Greater efforts are needed to educate health care providers and the public regarding the benefits of CR. Hence educating these health care professionals, other health care providers, patients, families, health care systems regarding the indisputable benefits of multidisciplinary CR will go a long way toward broadening the proportion of patients who receive these benefits.

Background - Tests of standing balance are frequently included in neurological evaluations, few objective data are available to indicate how well individuals of different ages should be able to maintain standing balance so the present study was carried out to establish the relationship between performance on timed balance tests and age.Methodology: Normal males and females (n=75) in the age group of 20-69 years were included in the study after they gave their informed consent.The subjects were allocated to 5 groups according to their age. Group A – 20-29 years, Group B – 30-39 years,Group C – 40-49 year,  Group D – 50-59 years, Group E –  60-69 years.Subjects stood without shoes with weight bearing lower extremities inside 18×20- inches frame on a smooth and level surface.Subjects in each age group performed eight balancing activities and time was recorded for each activity on a digital stop watch.Results- All subjects balanced for 30 seconds with feet apart and with feet together both with their eyes open and with their eyes closed. A significant negative correlation existed between the age and timed balance on one leg with eyes open and eyes closed.Conclusion – The results of the present study showed that decreased in timed balance test scores with ageing.

Background- Iron deficiency anaemia, being the most common nutritional disorder in the world, affects a large population of pregnant women in India. Low haemoglobin concentration not only is hazardous for the mother, it also poses a significant morbidity for the babies.

Aim- This study was done to observe the relationship between haemoglobin concentration in the third trimester of pregnancy in a group of women and they were followed up till the birth weight of the babies were recorded.

Materials and method: A hospital-based cross sectional study was conducted among 100 pregnant women. Maternal Hemoglobin levels during the third trimester (32-36 weeks) of pregnancy were measured by Cyanmet hemoglobin method. The patients were followed up and the weight of the babies were recorded immediately after birth.

Results and observation: The number of low birth weight babies increased as the maternal haemoglobin concentration decreased. The number was highest in severe maternal anemia. The percentage of LBW babies was slightly more in non-anemic women than mildly anemic women.

Conclusion: Maternal hemoglobin concentration was closely related to the birth weight of the baby. There is a need to closely observe and correct the iron deficiency anemia in pregnant women.