Journal of the Indian Medical Association
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Persons with major psychiatric illness in prisons--a three years study.
A research project entitled 'operation oasis' was implemented in West Bengal prisons by SEVAC, supported by the National Human Rights Commission of India for identification of the persons suffering from major psychiatric illnesses (ie, schizophrenia, psychosis not otherwise specified, mood disorder not otherwise specified) in prisons, making arrangements for their psychiatric treatment and rehabilitation and assessing the changes in them after intervention. Dum Dum Central Jail, Presidency Jail (female section), and Berhampore Central Jail were selected as the project fields. The prison inmates were screened through clinical examination and mental state examination. ⋯ During the project implementation period, 3871 prison inmates (male 3527 + female 344) were screened and 10% (n = 401) were identified as suffering from major psychiatric illnesses, of which 64% (n = 258) were housed in the prisons for minor offences/stray cases and 90% (n = 363) were undertrials. The findings concluded with a global assessment of functioning score improvement with a statistical significance of p < 0.01 level (Z = 5.06) for the patients. This study shows that a qualitative change took place in the life situations of the mentally ill people who were brought under the purview of psychiatric treatment and rehabilitation.
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Parenteral non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are useful agents in the treatment of postoperative pain and other acute traumatic painful conditions such as fractures. Clinical trials with lornoxicam, an oxicam derivative, document its efficacy as a potent analgesic with excellent anti-inflammatory properties in painful and or/inflammatory conditions including postoperative pain and arthritic conditions. However, there is no documentation of the efficacy and tolerability of intravenous lornoxicam in Indian patients with acute painful conditions such painful traumatic conditions requiring hospitalisation and parenteral analgesics. ⋯ Therapy with intravenous lornoxicam was well tolerated with only 5 patients reporting adverse events such as headache (n=3) and gastritis (n=1) of mild to moderate intensity but transient. Overall, global tolerability was rated as good to excellent in 98.4% of the total cases and fair in only 1.6% of the cases. In conclusion, the results of the present study indicate that intravenous lornoxicam is a potent NSAID with an optimal efficacy/toxicity ratio and thus could be a suitable therapeutic option in the management of patients with painful traumatic conditions requiring parenteral NSAIDs and hospitalisation.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Comparative Study
An open prospective study on postmarketing evaluation of the efficacy and tolerability of diacerein in osteo-arthritis of the knee (DOK).
According to World Health Organisation osteo-arthritis is the second commonest musculoskeletal problem in the world. Diacerein has been recently introduced in India for the treatment of osteo-arthritis. In view of the ulcerogenic potential of NSAIDs and the cardiotoxicity problems associated with COX-2 inhibitors, diacerein has the potential of being a non-ulcerogenic and non-cardiotoxic alternative respectively to NSAIDs and of COX-2 inhibitors in the treatment of osteo-arthritis. ⋯ The severity of the adverse events was mild in all the cases and disappeared with continued treatment. None of the patients dropped out of the study on account of adverse events or lack of efficacy. Thus, in conclusion, the results of the present study in a large population of Indian patients indicates that diacerein constitutes a novel approach to the treatment for the short- and long-term symptomatic management in Indian patients with osteo-arthritis of the knee.