Background: Vertigo Symptom Scale (VSS) by Yardley et al. (1992) is one of the disease specific
questionnaires used widely in clinical settings. It is conducted in English and had been translated into six languages including Dutch, French, German, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish. It has been acknowledged as a good subjective tool to determine the severity of balance disorders. Objective: To develop a valid Malay version of VSS (MVVSS) using appropriate translation methods and validation technique. Method: Forward and backward translation was performed by four professionals from different fields. The translated questionnaire was then assessed for its test reliability based on an experiment on 30 normal subjects. Further, to determine the cultural adaptation issues, the face validity of MVVSS was assessed from 32 normal subjects. They were asked to fill in the MVVSS questionnaire accordingly and give opinions regarding its language, understanding and overall format of questionnaire. Results: Final results of the translation process showed sufficient concurrence among the professionals involved. The reliability test among the normal subjects also showed a high Cronbach’s alpha value (0.90). The face validity method on 32 subjects (mean age of 29.9 ± 9.2 years) showed good feedbacks in terms of language, understanding and overall format of the MVVSS. Conclusion: The translation process was successful and the further validation showed an adequate face validity response. This suggests that our MVVSS has been culturally adapted and can be used in all Malay conversing patients.
Objective: To determine the prevalence of major depressive disorder (MDD) in hematological cancer patients and to investigate MDD with quality of life. Methods: The research, which uses a cross sectional design, has been carried out at Ampang Hospital, Kuala Lumpur. The hospital is a tertiary referral center for cancer cases that include non-Hodgkin lymphoma, acute myelogenous leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, Hodgkin lymphoma and other hematological cancers. In total, 105 patients with hematological malignancies were included in the study. This study employed the MINI International Neuropsychiatric Interview for diagnosis of MDD, the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) for symptom severity of depression and the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality Of Life questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30) to assess the quality of life of the respondents. Result: The response rate was 83.3%. The prevalence of MDD was 24.8% (n=26) with the majority of cases classified as moderately severe depression (38.5%). About 92.3% (n=24) of depressed hematological cancer patients were diagnosed with a current episode of MDD. The depressed patients also had significantly reduced quality of life in physical, role, emotional, cognitive and social domains (p
The potential use of medium- and long-chain triacylglycerols (MLCT) oil blends in food applications such as frying oil and salad dressings were investigated. The frying strength of palm-based MLCT oil with different antioxidants under deep frying conditions was assessed. Palm-based MLCT oil showed better thermal-resistant oxidative strength than refined, bleached and deodorized (RBD) palm olein throughout the five consecutive days of frying. Sensory evaluation and rancidity assessment on fried chips showed no significant differences (P > 0.05) between chips fried in RBD palm olein and palm-based MLCT oil. MLCT-based salad dressings treated with different antioxidants showed similar rheological behaviors as compared to soybean based salad dressings. The overall quality of the physical appearance and organoleptic acceptability based on quantitative descriptive analysis showed no significant differences (P > 0.05) in all salad dressings. These findings indicated that MLCT-based oil blends can be used as healthy functional oil for daily consumption.
Introduction: The purpose of this study was to evaluate inter-session repeatability, inter-examiner
reproducibility and inter-device agreement of corneal power measurements from manual keratometer,
autokeratometer, topographer, Pentacam high resolution and IOLMaster. Methods: Two sets of mean
corneal power measurements (n=40) were compared for inter-session repeatability and inter-examiner
reproducibility in each instrument. Repeatability and reproducibility were evaluated by within-subject
standard deviation (Sw), coefficient of variation (COV) and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). A oneway
repeated measures analysis of variance was conducted to compare differences in the corneal power
between each instrument pair. The Bland and Altman analysis and Pearson’s correlation were employed to
assess agreement and determine strength of relationship between measurements. Results: There were no
significant differences in mean corneal power measurements between 2 different visits (p > 0.05). The Sw
and COV values between 2 visits were lower than 0.09 D and 0.20 % respectively. The ICCs were stronger
than 0.99 in all instruments. For reproducibility of each instrument, differences of the measurements
between 2 different examiners were also insignificant (p > 0.05). The Sw and COV values between 2
examiners were lower than 0.11 D and 0.23 % respectively. The ICCs were 0.99 and above in all instruments.
The 95% limit of agreement between instruments ranged from -0.29 to 1.13 D and the r-values were stronger
than 0.84. Conclusion: The corneal power measurements using these 5 instruments were repeatable and
reproducible. These instruments can also be used interchangeably, however the topographer should be used
with caution.
A study was conducted to determine the prevalence of fungal infection in cancer patients warded at the Hospital Kuala Lumpur. There were 138 patients included in the study: 74 with haematological malignancies and 64 with solid tumours. Serological results showed that for candidiasis 16/138 (11.5%) and 10/134 (7.5%) were greater than 1:8 reactive for antigen and antibodies respectively. For aspergillosis, 29/122 (23.8%) sera were antigen reactive. Only 1/133 each (O.SO/o) was reactive for cryptococcal antigen and antibody. The types of malignancies, the age of the patient, a history of neutropenia, the duration of the cancer, the number of courses of chemotherapy or radiotherapy were not predictive of fungal infections. In view of the high serological evidence of fungal infection and the lack of a reliable diagnostic test, empirical antifungal treatment must be considered in all febrile neutropenic cancer patients.
Anaemia still constitutes a public health problem in the world, especially in the developing countries (1). Nutritional deficiency remains a major causative factor (2). During pregnancy, growth of the foetus, placenta and the larger amount of circulating blood in the expectant mother will lead to an increase in the demand for nutrients, especially iron and folic acid. Many women start their lives with insufficient iron stores, but also, because of inadequate child spacing, they have little time to build up their iron levels between pregnancies. In pregnancy, anaemia has been shown to be associated with an increased risk of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality (3,4,5). Iron and folic acid supplementation is routinely given to pregnant mothers in Malaysia. It is anticipated that pregnant mothers who comply strictly with the prescribed iron supplement will maintain adequate iron stores at parturition. However, the compliance rate among rural mothers in Kelantan is often poor (6). Kelantan is also one of the most socio-economically underdeveloped
The effect of transesterification of engkabang (Shorea macrophylla) fat - canola oil (EF35/ CaO65) blend by Mucor miehei lipase (1%, w/w oil) in a solvent-free system was investigated at different time intervals of 6 h, 12 h and 24 h. Compositional changes of the samples withdrawn at specified time intervals while the reaction in progress were analysed by chromatography, whereas the polymorphic forms and thermal properties were analysed by using X-ray diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry, respectively. There were increases in the amounts of monounsaturated and triunsaturated triacylglycerol (TAG) molecular groups with concurrent reductions of the proportions of desaturated TAG molecular groups during different time intervals. This changing TAG composition led to changes in crystallisation behaviour and thermal properties of the samples, reducing some enthalpy values. All samples withdrawn at different time intervals displayed both β' and β type crystal polymorphs even though engkabang fat itself was predominantly β‐type. In terms of melting, solidification and polymorphic properties, the sample withdrawn at 6 h time interval was found to display the closest similarity to lard (LD).
The immigration of foreign workers has important public health implications because it is a potential route for disease transmission. New diseases may be introduced into the country and diseases which have been eradicated may re-emerge among the local population. The emergence of new diseases and re-emergence of previously eradicated diseases will have grave public health implications because the local population has no or decreased immunity against these diseases. The mobility of foreign workers withing the country sometimes makes it difficult for the health authorities to track the source of infection. Foreign workers who are carriers of diseases such as Hepatitis B and HIV (which have a window period) will test as negative and hence will not be detected during the pre-employment medical examination. Thus it is essential that these foreign workers undergo a full medical examination and screening withing 3 to 6 months after entry into Malaysia and annually throughout their employment period in Malaysia. The current physical examination and screening procedure does not guarantee that these workers are totally disease-free. Therefore, we need to re-look at the current examination content, criteria and procedures to rectify any deficiencies in the current system. The authorities need to devise a mechanism to ensure that foreign workers or their employers purchase a medical insurance so that the public sector health facilities and personnel are not overloaded and overworked. The authorities have already in place a mechanism to prevent medically UNFIT foreign workers from entering this country. However, it is the large number of undocumented and illegal foreign workers that pose a bigger threat to the wellbeing of the nation's health. As long as employers are willing to take a risk by employing illegal foreign workers, all the efforts that the government has undertaken to safeguard the nation's health will be rendered futile.
Many studies have shown that failure in the control of hypertension with oral antihypertensives could be associated with noncompliance. The present study was conducted to assess the compliance rate to antihypertensive therapies and also to determine factors related to any noncompliance. The study was conducted in a teaching hospital in Kuala Lumpur. Data was collected from patients' medical records and via personal interview using a structured questionnaire. Out of a total of 175 respondents recruited in the study, 49.1% missed at least a dose of their antihypertensive agents during a one·month period. The most common reason given by respondents who were not compliant to their antihypertensive therapies was forgetfulness (91.8%), followed by too busy (20.0%) and insufficient medication supplied to them (18.8%). None of the factors analysed, including the demography of the respondents, their knowledge about hypertension and the types of antihypertensive therapies they were on, had any statistically significant influence on the compliance behaviour of the respondents to their antihypertensive therapies. However, more than 80% of the respondents kept their appointment to see their doctor and only this factor appeared to be related to the medication compliance behaviour although it still did not reach any statistical significance. KEYWORDS: Compliance, antihypertensive agent, blood pressure, knowledge
Elevated atmospheric CO2 is widely reported to stimulate the plant growth and affect plant physiological processes. However, studies on the respond of tropical plant species to elevated CO2 are quite limited and remain largely unknown. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of elevated atmospheric CO2 treatments on the photosynthetic characteristics, growth and biomass in Shorea platycarpa. Saplings of S. platycarpa were grown for seven months in the open roof gas chamber supplied with elevated CO2 (800±50 μmol mol-1) and in the shade house with ambient CO2 (400±50 μmol mol-1). Measurements of S. platycarpa growth and photosynthetic characteristics were made at frequent intervals. Biomass characteristics were determined using destructive methods after seven months of treatment and nondestructive method was used for leaf area index (LAI) determination. Photosynthetic rate (A) of S. platycarpa was not significantly affected by elevated CO2. Increased water use efficiency (WUE) of S. platycarpa grown in elevated CO2 was due to the reduced stomatal conductance (gs) and transpiration rate (E). The CO2 elevation had no significant effect on the S. platycarpa relative growth rates (RGR) and biomass but significantly reduced the leaf area. A weak correlation was found between photosynthetic rate (A) and relative growth rate (RGR). The results clearly showed that photosynthesis, growth rate and biomass of S. platycarpa were not significantly enhanced by elevated CO2. The findings indicated that elevated CO2 did not affect a relatively slow growing and a late successional peat swamp tree species.
This paper presents a dataset of bird's eye chilies in a single farm for semantic segmentation. The dataset is generated using two cameras that are aligned left and right forming a stereo-vision video capture. By analyzing the disparity between corresponding points in the left and right images, algorithms can calculate the relative distance of objects in the scene. This depth information is useful in various applications, including 3D reconstruction, object tracking, and autonomous navigation. The dataset consists of 1150 left and right compressed images extracted from ten sets of stereo videos taken at ten different locations within the chili farm from the same ages of the bird's eye chilies. Since the dataset is used for semantic segmentation, the ground truth images of manually semantic segmented images are also provided in the dataset. The dataset can be used for 2D and 3D semantic segmentation of the bird's eye view chili farm. Some of the object classes in this dataset are the sky, living things, plantation, flat, construction, nature, and misc.
Glucotoxicity contributes to beta-cell dysfunction through oxidative stress. Our previous study demonstrated that tualang honey ameliorated renal oxidative stress and produced hypoglycemic effect in streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats. This present study investigated the hypothesis that hypoglycemic effect of tualang honey might partly be due to protection of pancreas against oxidative stress. Diabetes was induced by a single dose of STZ (60 mg/kg; ip). Diabetic rats were randomly divided into two groups and administered distilled water (0.5 ml/d) and tualang honey (1.0 g/kg/d). Similarly, two groups of non-diabetic rats received distilled water (0.5 ml/d) and tualang honey (1.0 g/kg/d). The animals were treated orally for 28 days. At the end of the treatment period, the honey-treated diabetic rats had significantly (p<0.05) reduced blood glucose levels [8.8 (5.8)mmol/L; median (interquartile range)] compared with the diabetic control rats [17.9 (2.6)mmol/L]. The pancreas of diabetic control rats showed significantly increased levels of malondialdehyde (MDA) and up-regulation of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activities. Catalase (CAT) activity was significantly reduced while glutathione-S-transferase (GST) and glutathione reductase (GR) activities remained unchanged in the pancreas of diabetic rats. Tualang honey significantly (p<0.05) reduced elevated MDA levels. Honey treatment also restored SOD and CAT activities. These results suggest that hypoglycemic effect of tualang honey might be attributed to its antioxidative effect on the pancreas.
Kuala Lumpur has been undergoing rapid urbanisation process, mainly in infrastructure development. The opening of new township and residential in former tin mining areas, particularly in the heavy mineral- or tin-bearing alluvial soil in Kuala Lumpur, is a contentious subject in land-use regulation. Construction practices, i.e. reclamation and dredging in these areas are potential to enhance the radioactivity levels of soil and subsequently, increase the existing background gamma radiation levels. This situation is worsened with the utilisation of tin tailings as construction materials apart from unavoidable soil pollutions due to naturally occurring radioactive materials in construction materials, e.g. granitic aggregate, cement and red clay brick. This study was conducted to assess the urbanisation impacts on background gamma radiation in Kuala Lumpur. The study found that the mean value of measured dose rate was 251±6nGyh-1(156-392nGyh-1) and 4 times higher than the world average value. High radioactivity levels of238U (95±12Bqkg-1),232Th (191±23Bqkg-1,) and40K (727±130Bqkg-1) in soil were identified as the major source of high radiation exposure. Based on statistical ANOVA, t-test, and analyses of cumulative probability distribution, this study has statistically verified the dose enhancements in the background radiation. The effective dose was estimated to be 0.31±0.01mSvy-1per man. The recommended ICRP reference level (1-20mSvy-1) is applicable to the involved existing exposure situation in this study. The estimated effective dose in this study is lower than the ICRP reference level and too low to cause deterministic radiation effects. Nevertheless based on estimations of lifetime radiation exposure risks, this study found that there was small probability for individual in Kuala Lumpur being diagnosed with cancer and dying of cancer.
A cross-sectional study to examine the association of giardiasis with protein-energy malnutrition, vitamin A deficiency and iron deficiency anaemia was conducted among Orang Asli children in Selangor, Malaysia. A total of 281 children aged 2-15 years were studied. The data were collected using structured questionnaires, anthropometric measurements and laboratory analysis of blood and faecal samples. The results showed that 24.9% of the children were infected with Giardia duodenalis, while 56.5, 61.3 and 15.1% had significant underweight, stunting and wasting, respectively. Giardiasis was statistically identified as a strong predictor of significant wasting in this study population.
We report the first case of young woman with the p phenotype and anti-PP1P(k) antibody in the Malaysian population who was identified during a blood grouping and antibody screening procedure after her first miscarriage. Further family screening detected two other siblings who possessed the same rare phenotype and antibody. Because of difficulties in finding compatible units in the local population, the patient and her two siblings were advised to become regular blood donor. Their blood was frozen for future use. After she had two recurrent miscarriages, her third pregnancy was successfully managed using oral dydrogesterone, which was started from 10 weeks into the pregnancy. Her pregnancy was uneventful and she gave birth to a healthy term neonate.