The Central African journal of medicine最新文献

Idiopathic hypoparathyroidism is an uncommon medical condition, which may present with dementia. This may be misdiagnosed as 'senile dementia' in elderly patients. We report such a case, made more remarkable by associated extensive cerebral calcification and we review the background literature.

Four patients with bilateral ocular surface squamous neoplasia attended to at Sekuru Kaguvi Hospital Eye Unit are being presented to alert practitioners that OSSN is potentially a bilateral disease and its prevalence is likely to increase as the life expectancy of HIV infected patients is being positively affected by antiretroviral therapy. Reports on ocular diseases should be clear on laterality to avoid confusion between number of patients affected and number of eyes involved since the two cannot be used interchangeably.

Tubular ectasia of the rete testis (TERT) is a rare benign condition of the testis due to dilatation of the tubules of the rete testis. It must be differentiated from neoplastic disease of the testis clinically by patient's age, mode of presentation, tumour marker status and characteristic ultrasound and colour Doppler findings. Awareness and diagnosis of TERT should prevent unnecessary surgical intervention such as orchidectomy or biopsy. We report a case of severe bilateral tubular ectasia of the rete testis associated with azoospermia and review the relevant literature. This association has not been reported before in the literature to the best of our knowledge.

Post operative foreign body in the abdominal cavily, though rare continues to occur in surgical practice. Symptoms may start early with abdominal pain but usually have a varying course, ofter leading 10 the formation of gossypiboma. This is usually a great source of embarrassment to the surgeon and the centre, and of serious detrimental effect to the patient. A case report of a 27-year-old trader with intra-abdominal foreign body is presented to highlig at the similarity in presentation with abdominal lymphoma and the need to explore carefully masses in the abdominal cavity especially in patients who have had surgery in the past. A high index of suspicious is required on the part of the clinician in addition to appropriate radiological and sonologic assessment. Prompt diagnosis and treatment ameliorates the patients suffering and brings them back to life.

Zimbabwe's target to achieve Universal Access to treatment for HIV and AIDS, was severely affected by a decade long economic recession that threatened to reverse all the country's social and economic indicators. Despite these challenges, by September 2010, 282,916 adults and children (47.7% of those in need of treatment) were on treatment at 509 sites countrywide since national scale up started. ART services are predominantly offered through the public sector, with the private sector being an untapped potential resource for ART services for the future. Challenges of skilled and adequately trained human resources have hindered progress towards service availability. Providing access to children in particular has been constrained by lack of clinical mentorship for health workers, weak systems for support supervision, and inadequate HIV diagnostic services especially for children under 18 months and challenges with follow up of the HIV-exposed infants. Though the country has not met its target of Universal Access by 2010, significant progress has been made with over a 30-fold increase in service availability.

Objective: To examine the relationship between personal health beliefs and self-care practices among 69 PTB patients aged 25 to 65 years at a tuberculosis clinic in Zimbabwe, in order to determine the role patients can play in self-care.

Design: Analysis of collected demographic data, personal health beliefs (PH B) and self-care practices (SCP) of PTB patients.

Settings: Gwanda Provincial Hospital (GPH) Tuberculosis Clinic.

Participants: PTB patients in the (GPH) register who were taking treatment.

Interventions: Key components of the study included administration of an interview schedule to 69 PTB patients on treatment, and the analysis and comparison of personal health beliefs and self-care practices.

Main outcome measures: Scores of personal health beliefs, self-care practices, perceived self-efficacy, perceived threats, and cost-benefit analysis.

Results: Sixty- nine PTB patients with a median age of 38, screened during the month of March, 2009, showed a weak positive Pearson's correlational coefficient of (R2=0.177), indicating that personal health beliefs may have some influence on self-care practices. The regression analysis showed an association of 3.1%, thus health beliefs are responsible for self-care undertaken by 3.1 in a 100 PTB patients.

Conclusions: Directly Observed Treatment Short Course (DOTS) seems to have reduced the self-care practice of PTS patients. It seems the PTB patient has a potential role to play in the management of his own treatment.

Objective: To determine knowledge, attitudes and practices on intermittent presumptive therapy among pregnant women.

Design: A descriptive survey design.

Setting: A rural district in Zimbabwe in a Malaria endemic area lying in the Zambezi valley.

Subjects: A convenience sample of forty pregnant women living in Guruve District and on the intermittent presumptive therapy (IPI) programme. There were no drop outs.

Main outcome measures: Selected indicators of knowledge, attitudes and practices were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Results: The principal results were that the majority of the respondents (67) had knowledge about the intermittent presumptive therapy (IPT) but (67%) lacked awareness of the benefits of the programme activities. Seventy respondents (43%) said that information about the programme was not readily available. Eleven (27.5%) believed that drugs used in IPI programme could cause fatal congenital abnormalities. All the respondents (100%) believed that malaria could be prevented. Twenty-nine (72.5%) took drugs for IPI accurately under supervision by the nurse and eleven (27.5%) took drugs incorrectly.

Conclusion: Drug compliance improves if drugs are taken under direct supervision. The results revealed that the majority was knowledgeable of the existence of the IPT, but were not aware of the benefits. There was also a problem of information dissemination leading to ignorance, and myths and misconceptions. Therefore, health education and promotion has to be intensified to give accurate information and motivation.