Detection and categorization of severe cardiac disorders based solely on pulse interval measurements

Cardiac disorders are common conditions associated with a high mortality rate. Due to their potential for causing serious symptoms, it is desirable to constantly monitor cardiac status using an accessible device such as a smartwatch. While electrocardiograms (ECGs) can make the detailed diagnosis of cardiac disorders, the examination is typically performed only once a year for each individual during health checkups, and it requires expert medical practitioners to make comprehensive judgments. Here we describe a newly developed automated system for alerting individuals about cardiac disorders solely based on pulse interval measurements. For this purpose, we examined two metrics of heart rate variability (HRV) and analyzed 1-day ECG recordings of more than 1,000 subjects in total. We found that a newly introduced metric of local variation was more efficient than conventional HRV metrics for detecting premature contraction, and furthermore, that a suitable combination of the old and new metrics resulted in much superior detectability particularly for atrial fibrillation, which requires more attention. Even with a 1-minute recording of pulse intervals, our new detection system had a diagnostic performance even better than that of the conventional analysis method applied to a 1-day recording.

An Intelligent Approach for Prediction of Life Style Conditions in Adolescent Girls by Analyzing Health Parameters

Monitoring health parameters has become a challenging task due to unpredictable diseases and related symptoms. Lifestyle is a crucial factor to decide to be healthy, in adolescent girls especially. This chapter presents a work in progress on prediction of lifestyle of adolescent girls based on problems like unhealthy routines of eating habits, sleep patterns, stress, etc. Therefore, an IT-enabled system is presented to assess current lifestyle of adolescent girls in an easy and faster way. A systematic survey is conducted with specially designed survey form by consulting medical practitioners and physical trainers. Twenty-one factors related to age, diet habits, exercise habits, sleeping habits, health history, etc. are included in the expert-guided form. One hundred fifty-five individual responses are collected and assessed manually by medical experts to annotate as healthy or unhealthy types. The healthy lifestyle prediction accuracy with support vector machine is 83.87% whereas it is 80.64% using logistic regression.

A novel salp swarm clustering algorithm for prediction of the heart diseases

Heart <span>diseases have a severe impact on human life and health. Cardiovascular deaths and diseases have increased at a fast rate worldwide. The early prediction of these diseases is necessary to prevent deaths. Now a day; a considerable amount of medical information is available and collected as databases. An efficient technique is required to analyse this data and predict the disease. Clustering can help medical practitioners in diagnosis by classifying the patient’s data collected for a disease. Clustering techniques can analyse such data based on each patient-generated and predict disease. A new prediction model based on salp swarm algorithm and support vector machine is proposed in this research for predicting heart diseases. Salp swarm algorithm is used to select the useful features from the database. Support vector machine classifier is used to predict heart diseases. Results obtained are compared with the other algorithms available in the literature. It is observed that the proposed approach produces better results with accuracy 98.75% and 98.46% with the dataset 1 and 2, respectively. In addition to this, the algorithm converges in significantly less time in comparison to other algorithms. This algorithm might become a perfect supporting tool for medical </span>practitioners.

Identification of Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) using Image Processing

Diabetes appears in two varieties: Type-1 and Type-2. The former is chronic and can last for years together, whereas the latter can be cured if identified and treated at a premature stage. The symptoms of diabetes affecting the eyes appear very subtle and hence, identifying irregularities in retinal images is a demanding process for medical practitioners. Thus, there was a need to find a method to detect these abnormalities by observing the retinal images non-invasively. After going through research projects and recent developments in identifying DR, we found various techniques/strategies employed, their advantages and drawbacks followed by the objective of overall findings, and the importance of a good DR detection system. Our proposed method calls to attention the importance of early screening, using geometrical relations, multiple thresholding methods and usage of convolutional neural networks as means of overcoming the factors that stand as obstacles in timely detection.

Opinions, Attitudes, and Prescribing Practices of Oral Contraceptive Pills of General Practitioners and Gynecologists in India

Background Prescribing behavior of oral contraceptive pills (OCPs) by physicians, gynecologists, and alternative medicine practitioners (AMPs). Materials and Methods Close-ended questionnaire-based cross-section study was performed between 1st September 2012 and 28th February 2014 in three groups of responders, i.e., AMP, general medical practitioners (GMPs), and obstetricians and gynecologists (ObGy). A stratified random cluster sample was used. Data of 400 subjects in all three groups were obtained using both univariate and multi-variate sophisticated statistical analyses for analyzing attitude and practices and were recorded on an ordinal scale using appropriate non-parametric test. Results Of the 1,237 subjects surveyed, 400 completed questionnaires were received from each of the three groups viz; AMPs, GMPs, and ObGy. Remaining 37 incomplete questionnaires were not included in the final analysis. Conclusion There are equal misconceptions regarding OCPs among users and prescribing physicians. Preference for OCPs in married and unmarried women is also equally low. OCP usage and their prescription practices can be improved by removing potential barriers, developing public–private partnership, and training promoters.

Cyberchondria and its Impact on Self-Medication and Self Care in CovId-19 Pandemic – A Cross Sectional Study

Background: Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has brought several impacts on the health of people. The infodemic which accompanied the pandemic can lead to cyberchondria, fear and anxiety accompanying excessive online search of COVID-19 related information. Most of the people try to avoid getting infected with this virus by taking adequate protective measures. Hence the aim of this study was to analyze the impact of COVID-19 related cyberchondria on self-medication and self care. Materials and Methods: An online cross-sectional semi-structured questionnaire based study was done and a total of 323 responses were obtained. Participants were segregated into two clusters based on the cyberchondria severity score which included four constructs using k-means cluster analysis considering the score obtained in each construct. The impact of cyberchondria on self care and self care among medical practitioners between the clusters was analyzed using independent t-test. Qualitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results: This study found that 35% of the participants were categorized in the cluster with high cyberchondria score. A marked proportion of the participants who have taken self-medication for COVID-19 prophylaxis belonged to this cluster. A statistically significant difference was observed in the mean of the scores used to assess self care between the clusters (p = 0.003) whereas no significant difference was observed among registered medical practitioners (p=0.222). Conclusion: Anxiety related with excessive online COVID-19 information seeking behaviour had effects in terms of enhanced self care and self-medication in the respondents. Hence it is important to use internet wisely for self well being.

Communication Experiences of Pekanbaru City Patients Receiving In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) Treatment in Malaysia Fertility Clinics

Doctor-patient communication is important in all medical consultations including for In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) treatment. An unfavourable communication experience can cause a patient to stop taking the treatment, move to another local fertility clinic, or even seek treatment abroad. There are still few studies documenting communication experiences of patients with infertility seeking reproductive treatment in other countries. This study aimed to describe the communication experiences of Indonesian IVF patients receiving IVF treatment from medical practitioners in fertility clinics in Malaysia. This study used Benner's interpretive phenomenology framework in its approach and when analysing the results. Data collection was carried out using in-depth and semi-structured interviews with 11 IVF patients from Pekanbaru city Indonesia who received IVF treatment in fertility clinics in Malaysia. This study found three main themes shared by the IVF patients’ communication experiences: 1) memorable experiences (friendliness and caring, empathy, honesty and openness, clarity and adequacy of the information, and easiness of communication; 2) less memorable experiences (less interpersonal communication, less warm non-verbal communication, and miscommunication); and 3) communication barriers (English). These findings have important implications for both the prospective patients receiving cross-border fertility treatment in the future and for service providers providing fertility treatment to improve doctor-patient communication. Keywords: Health communication, doctor-patient communication, communication experience, infertility, cross-border reproductive care, in vitro fertilisation treatment.

THE INFLUENCE OF MORAL JUDGMENT ON PHYSICIANS' PRESCRIPTION BEHAVIOUR

Pharmaceutical promotion towards physicians’ prescription behaviour is strongly interrelated. Identifying and addressing the ethical challenges in physicians’ prescription behaviour to increase the ethical predisposition of prescribing medicines is prioritized in global health and development plans. Hence, the importance of ethics in the professionalism of healthcare practitioners is now a growing concern. The main objective of this research is to investigate the influence of moral judgment on physicians' prescription behaviour. A survey has been conducted among 152 medical practitioners from private healthcare facilities in the metropolitan area of Kuala Lumpur and Selangor states of Malaysia. The principal component analysis method in EFA and structural equation modelling technique in CFA has been used to analyze the data and validate the model. The study found that physicians’ moral equity factor has a significant and positive influence on physicians’ prescription behaviour whereas their relativism and contractualism factors were not significant. The empirical evidence obtained from this study would make significant contributions to advancing the current knowledge of ethical prescription behaviour. Recommendations to physicians for more ethical prescription practices have been discussed at the end of this paper.

Perception of medical interns and residents about specialty of microbiology and the role of microbiologists during COVID-19 pandemic

Background: The speciality of microbiology is closely associated with keeping people healthy and disease free by accurate diagnosis of infectious diseases. In spite of this, awareness about the speciality seems to be scarce. In the present scenario, public perception about microbiology has been changed a lot. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has highlighted the crucial role of microbiologists in the health care system. The aim of this survey was to determine the perceptions of medical interns and residents regarding the specialty of microbiology and the role of microbiologists in maintaining and promoting health of people.Methods: On-line survey using google form to identify perception of medical interns and residents about the speciality of microbiology.Results: A total 298 valid responses were obtained response rate 26.02% from the participants among them 167 (56.0%) were male and 131 (44.0%) females. Though, the attitude of medical interns and residents were found positive for the speciality of microbiology, they even recognize the importance of medical microbiology in their future role as medical practitioners, but only few (3.48%) wished to opt it as their career.Conclusions: The risks and responsibilities of a microbiologist involved in managing patients seldom get due acknowledgement. Adequate measures need to be taken to enlighten the authorities about microbiology and various responsibilities of microbiologists. The health care providers and medical teachers needed to appreciate the perception of young medical students regarding current and future trends in specialty choice and take concrete steps to meet the unmet need of health care.