Articles: human.
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BMC Int Health Hum Rights · Dec 2007
Indigenous well-being in four countries: an application of the UNDP'S human development index to indigenous peoples in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States.
Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand consistently place near the top of the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Index (HDI) rankings, yet all have minority Indigenous populations with much poorer health and social conditions than non-Indigenous peoples. It is unclear just how the socioeconomic and health status of Indigenous peoples in these countries has changed in recent decades, and it remains generally unknown whether the overall conditions of Indigenous peoples are improving and whether the gaps between Indigenous peoples and other citizens have indeed narrowed. There is unsettling evidence that they may not have. It was the purpose of this study to determine how these gaps have narrowed or widened during the decade 1990 to 2000. ⋯ The inconsistent progress in the health and well-being of Indigenous populations over time, and relative to non-Indigenous populations, points to the need for further efforts to improve the social, economic, and physical health of Indigenous peoples.
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This article has been withdrawn consistent with Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy). The Publisher apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause.
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J Coll Physicians Surg Pak · Aug 2007
Knowledge, attitude and practices (kap) regarding blood donation prevalent in medical and paramedical personnel.
To assess Knowledge, Attitude and Practices (KAP) regarding voluntary blood donation prevalent in medical and paramedical personnel having basic level of awareness on the subject. ⋯ It is concluded from our study that there is an urgent need to create and strengthen programs for motivation, recruitment and retention of Voluntary Non-remunerated blood Donors (VNDs) in our country on the basis of following observations of the study:- More blood donations from medical doctors are observed in our study as compared to the paramedics. This phenomenon seems to be related to the basic and advanced medical education of doctors that obviously tends to increase their level of awareness manifolds as compared to the paramedics. Maximum number of non-donors (both medical and paramedical) in the study stated the reason of their non-donation being "no one has ever asked them to donate blood". This implies that even the increased level of awareness on the subject does not result in actual act of donating blood. It would, therefore, not be justified to expect from general public 'humane gesture of preserving life' without creating in them awareness of the importance of voluntary blood donation.
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Objectives. Electrical brain stimulation is used as a treatment for patients with intractable chronic pain and movement disorders. However, the implantation of electrodes and electrical stimulation may induce histological changes around the electrode tip. We aimed to review the histological changes in humans that were electrically stimulated in the brain. ⋯ Macroscopic lesions were present in only some cases, mostly due to pulling at the extension cable in the postoperative evaluation period preceding definite implantation of the electrode wire and stimulator. Conclusions. Electrical brain stimulation induces histological changes in some patients. According to electrical brain stimulation studies in animals, these changes can be related to the charge and charge density per phase (and their interaction).
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Introduction. Early animal and human evidence existed for a postsynaptic dorsal column (PSDC) pathway for visceral nociception that, when lesioned, decreased pain of terminal illness. There have been recent anecdotal reports in the literature that spinal cord stimulation (SCS) reduces pain of visceral nociception. We present here a review of the literature supporting a hypothesis that SCS might work by modulating information through the spinothalamic tracts (STT) and PSDC. ⋯ Conclusions. Chronic visceral nociception may be secondary to visceral sensitization and hyperalgesia and can be affected by the spinal cord and brain, the "brain-gut" axis. There is preclinical evidence and clinical anecdotes that this nociceptive information is transmitted in the central nervous system through the PSDC pathway and LSTT and that SCS decreases pain of visceral nociception. It may be that SCS works by modulation of the above pathways.