The objective of this study was to present a case series of patients with hypokalemic periodic paralysis. We described all patients with diagnosis of hypokalemic periodic paralysis admitted to the Al Ain Hospital (UAE) during the year 2006. Seventeen patients, all males and mostly Asians, were presented to the Al Ain Hospital over a 12-month period. The majority were admitted during the summer months. Four were thyrotoxic. All of the 17 patients received oral potassium supplements and recovered well without any major complications. In conclusion, clinicians should have a high index of suspicion, especially among Asians presenting with flaccid paralysis and hypokalemia. The main steps in the management include exclusion of other causes of hypokalemia, potassium replacement, hydration and close monitoring of the cardiac rhythm and serum potassium levels. When possible, the underlying cause must be adequately addressed to prevent the persistence or recurrence of paralysis.

Allopathic medical professionals in developed nations have started to collaborate with traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine (TCAM) to enquire on the role of religion/spirituality (r/s) in patient care. There is scant evidence of such movement in the Indian medical community. We aim to understand the perspectives of Indian TCAM and allopathic professionals on the influence of r/s in health. Using RSMPP (Religion, Spirituality and Medicine, Physician Perspectives) questionnaire, a cross-sectional survey was conducted at seven (five TCAM and two allopathic) pre-selected tertiary care medical institutes in India. Findings of TCAM and allopathic groups were compared. Majority in both groups (75% of TCAM and 84.6% of allopathic practitioners) believed that patients' spiritual focus increases with illness. Up to 58% of TCAM and allopathic respondents report patients receiving support from their religious communities; 87% of TCAM and 73% of allopaths believed spiritual healing to be beneficial and complementary to allopathic medical care. Only 11% of allopaths, as against 40% of TCAM, had reportedly received 'formal' training in r/s. Both TCAM (81.8%) and allopathic (63.7%) professionals agree that spirituality as an academic subject merits inclusion in health education programs (p = 0.0003). Inclusion of spirituality in the health care system is a need for Indian medical professionals as well as their patients, and it could form the basis for integrating TCAM and allopathic medical systems in India.

Over time, textual information on the World Wide Web (WWW) has increased exponentially, leading to potential research in the field of machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP). Sentiment analysis of scientific domain articles is a very trendy and interesting topic nowadays. The main purpose of this research is to facilitate researchers to identify quality research papers based on their sentiment analysis. In this research, sentiment analysis of scientific articles using citation sentences is carried out using an existing constructed annotated corpus. This corpus is consisted of 8736 citation sentences. The noise was removed from data using different data normalization rules in order to clean the data corpus. To perform classification on this data set we developed a system in which six different machine learning algorithms including Naïve-Bayes (NB), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Logistic Regression (LR), Decision Tree (DT), K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) and Random Forest (RF) are implemented. Then the accuracy of the system is evaluated using different evaluation metrics e.g. F-score and Accuracy score. To improve the system' accuracy additional features selection techniques, such as lemmatization, n-graming, tokenization, and stop word removal are applied and found that our system provided significant performance in every case compared to the base system. Our method achieved a maximum of about 9% improved results as compared to the base system.

BackgroundBreast cancer is characterized by late presentation and significant morbidity and mortality in developing countries. Breast screening aids in early detection of breast cancer. Nurses are uniquely placed to provide advocacy and screening in a resource limited environment.ObjectivesTo assess the effectiveness of an abbreviated training program in breast cancer awareness on nurses at a tertiary hospital, in a resource constrained environment.MethodsUsing a statistical tool, the Solomon Model, 79 nurses were identified and divided into experimental and control groups. An abbreviated training intervention in breast cancer awareness was administered to the experimental group. Pre and post test questionnaires and objective structured clinical examinations were used to determine nurses’ knowledge and practice skills before and after the abbreviated training intervention.ResultsInitial scores of knowledge and practice skills related to clinical breast examination were low: Mean knowledge scores of 18 out of 25 [72%] and mean practice scores of 12.5 out of 30 [41.6%]. Significant improvement was observed following the abbreviated training intervention in both knowledge and practice skills. Knowledge scores of 22 out of 25 [88%, p = < 0.001] and practice scores of 26 out of 30 [86.6%, p=0.003]. Trained nurses were able to improve their knowledge of breast cancer from fair to good knowledge.ConclusionThere is need to increase breast awareness, both in terms of knowledge and practice skills, in nurses as a means of improving awareness among the general population and early detection of breast cancer. An abbreviated training in breast cancer awareness can improve these skills in nurses.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2193-1801-2-528) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Persons with mental illnesses in India and rest of developing world continue to consult religious/spiritual (R/S) healers or traditional, complementary and alternative medicine (TCAM) professionals prior to seeking psychiatric services that are devoid of spiritual components of care. We aim to understand TCAM and allopathic professionals' perspectives on patients' R/S needs within mental health services, cross-sectional study was conducted at five TCAM and two allopathic tertiary care hospitals in three different Indian states; 393 participants completed RSMPP, a self-administered, semi-structured survey questionnaire. Perspectives of TCAM and allopathic health professionals on role of spirituality in mental health care were compared. Substantial percentage, 43.7 % TCAM and 41.3 % allopathic, of participants believe that their patients approach R/S or TCAM practitioners for severe mental illness; 91.2 % of TCAM and 69.7 % of allopaths were satisfied with R/S healers (p = 0.0019). Furthermore, 91.1 % TCAM and 73.1 % allopaths (p = 0.000) believe that mental health stigma can be minimized by integrating with spiritual care services. Overall, 87 % of TCAM and 73 % of allopaths agreed to primary criterion variable: 'spiritual healing is beneficial and complementary to psychiatric care.' A quarter of allopaths (24.4 %) and 38 % of TCAM physicians reportedly cross-refer their grieving patients to religious/TCAM healer and psychiatrist/psychologist, respectively; on logistic regression, significant (p < 0.05) predictors were clinical interactions/references to r/s healers. Providing spiritual care within the setup of psychiatric institution will not only complement psychiatric care but also alleviate stigma against mental health services. Implications on developing spiritual care services like clinical chaplaincy are discussed.

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Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning is rare in the Arabian Peninsula and occurs almost exclusively during the winter months. Knowledge and perception of the hazards of carbon monoxide is limited. Migrant workers from warm climates appear particularly at risk. We investigated 46 cases of carbon monoxide poisoning presenting at emergency departments from 2007-2009 of the two main hospitals in Al Ain city, United Arab Emirates. Interviews, hospital records, and administered questionnaires were used to collect the data. Among the 46 cases investigated, 24 (52%) were males. Foreign nationals compromised 80% of the cases and the incidence was 3.1 cases per 100,000 residents per year. Burning charcoal in poorly ventilated residences was the predominant source of the carbon monoxide poisoning. Almost all cases (98%) were admitted during the winter months, most in the early morning hours. Carboxyhaemoglobin (COHb) was significantly increased in cases with loss of consciousness and depressed consciousness. There were no reported fatalities.

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