Background:Exponential use of internet has resulted in internet addiction in recent times. Students are particularly at risk because of their unique personal, social, and academic needs.Objectives:The study was designed to evaluate the prevalence of internet addiction and its determinants among medical students.Materials and Methods:A cross-sectional study was conducted in 282 medical students with the help of semi-structured questionnaire consisting of questions related to demographic information, information related to internet use, and Young's internet addiction test.Results:We found prevalence of internet addiction among medical students to be 58.87% (mild – 51.42%, moderate –7.45%) and significantly associated factors with internet addiction being male gender, staying in private accommodation, lesser age of first internet use, using mobile for internet access, higher expenditure on internet, staying online for longer time, and using internet for social networking, online videos, and watching website with sexual content.Conclusion:Medical students are vulnerable for internet addiction and efforts should be taken to increase awareness and prevent the problem of internet addiction in them.

Background:Researchers have found elevated rates of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) in borderline personality disorder (BPD) patients. They have also implicated the role of CSA later in BPD. However, there has been a scarcity of studies regarding this in Indian population.Objectives:To profile the occurrence of CSA and its parameters in BPD patients and to document symptomatology of BPD associated with CSA.Materials and Methods:Thirty-six consecutive patients with BPD were administered with a two-staged semi-structured interview by different interviewers with the first stage for collecting sociodemographic details and confirming BPD diagnosis and the second stage for collecting information about CSA.Results:Of 36 BPD patients, 16 (44.44%) reported a history of definite CSA. The majority of CSA associated with BPD were having characteristics of onset at 7–12 years, <10 occasions of abuse, perpetrator being a close relative or a close acquaintance and genital type of CSA. Identity disturbances (P = 0.0354), recurrent suicidal/self-harm behavior (P = 0.0177), and stress-related paranoid/dissociative symptoms (P = 0.0177) were significantly associated with the presence of CSA while unstable interpersonal relationships (P = 0.001) were significantly associated with the absence of CSA.Conclusion:Significant proportion of BPD patients reported CSA. The specific symptom profile of BPD patients can be used to predict the presence of CSA in these patients, which has a direct implication in the treatment of these patients.

Size of the problem of rehabilitating the disabled The estimated total number of disabled persons is approximately 400 million, or roughly 10% of the world population. It has been further estimated that at least two-thirds of this vast section of humanity are not exposed to any form ofrehabilitation services. Not unexpectedly almost the whole of these totally unserved disabled persons live in the developing countries. It is true that not all disabled persons will benefit from rehabilitation services. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) has projected that at any given time about 1.5% of the total population in the developing countries consist of disabled persons who could benefit from rehabilitation.' Thus some 40 million disabled persons in developing countries would presently need to be provided with at least the basic rehabilitation services. They will mainly comprise persons with disabilities pertaining to a variety of functions, viz., moving, seeing, hearing, learning, etc. In the post-war years many institutions providing comprehensive rehabilitation services to the disabled (including medical restorative technology, education, adjustment training, and vocational services) have been established in the developed as well as the developing countries. However, financial constraints and shortage of highly skilled professional manpower tend to limit the setting up of adequate numbers of new centres of this type for purpose of providing total population coverage even in the developed countries. Unfortunately, ultra-specialization within the rehabilitation professions has also led to unacceptably high costs for services, very often reducing the efficiency ofutilization ofavailable manpower.2 In the case of the developing countries lack of manpower and finances in staggering dimensions stand in the way of providing any significant rehabilitation services of the traditional institutional type that could claim even part coverage of their vast populations. According to a special Technical Report of the World Health A~sembly,~ the outcome ofa feasibility study conducted in an African country indicated that it would take at least 60 years to develop adequate manpower and about 200 years to provide rehabilitation services to the entire population if the institutional model of service delivery is to be adopted. It is obvious that the present model of institutionalizing rehabilitation is totally inadequate to meet the problem at least with reference to developing countries. It is further incapable of coping with the predictable increase in demand for services in the future. New approach and strategyFrom the inevitable failure of the traditional institutional model for providing rehabilitation services arises the need to tackle the problem through a multi-pronged attack based on prevention, early detection and management utilizing low-cost technology and resources available to the disabled person's family as well as his community. The WHO has, in this connection, advocated the broad approach of "primary health car...

The acute onset of psychotic symptoms in elderly can be the presenting clinical feature for various Central Nervous System as well as other systemic illnesses. The diagnosis and treatment of such presentation require a cautious medical work up and high level of suspicion even if the patient is not showing any cardinal symptoms for organic pathology.

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