Held valley hoteliers demand tourism infrastructure

Thursday, 7 February 2013

Srinagar, Feb 7: Expecting a successful tourism season ahead, the Valley-based hoteliers today urged the state government to upgrade tourism infrastructure in the urban areas.

The hoteliers pinned their hopes on Nawang Rigzin Jora, newly inducted Urban Development Minister for giving thrust to the upgradation of the tourism infrastructure in Srinagar.

At a joint press conference by Kashmir Hotels and Restaurant Association (KHARA) and Kashmir Hotels and Restaurant Owners’ Federation (KHAROF), the hoteliers urged the Urban Development Minister to help upgrade the infrastructure and other basic facilities for tourists to make their stay comfortable.

“Kashmir is back on the tourism track. We need to give our best efforts to make the stay of the tourists comfortable. We have to be good hosts, which is possible only when we have requisite tourism infrastructure,” said KHARA President Showkat Chowdhary.

 Chowdhary said: “We have many tourist places in the urban areas and towns. The role of Urban Development Ministry is very important for the upgradation of tourist infrastructure. The department has to develop basic amenities at the tourist places which can help us give best services to visitors and make their stay more comfortable,” he said.

 KHAROF, President, Faiz Ahmad Bakshi asked the Urban Development Department to build the infrastructure in collaboration with private players while keeping the environmental concerns into consideration.

“We need to create an eco-friendly infrastructure so that the development doesn’t come up at the cost of our environment. The department should also erect lavatory points at every place,” said Bakshi.

Both the presidents resolved to support the Srinagar Municipal Corporation against use of polythene and also in the beautification of the city.

“The SMC has taken good steps to beautify city by planting trees. We have to make our city cleaner and more beautiful and protect our environment for sustainable tourism. The hoteliers will support every move in this direction by the authorities,” the hoteliers said.

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New technique successfully dissolves blood clots in brain and lowers risk of brain damage after stroke

Islamabad, Feb 7: Johns Hopkins neurologists report success with a new means of getting rid of potentially lethal blood clots in the brain safely without cutting through easily damaged brain tissue or removing large pieces of skull.

The minimally invasive treatment, they report, increased by 10 to 15 percent the number of patients with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) who could function independently six months following the procedure.

At the International Stroke Conference taking place Jan. 31 through Feb. 2 in New Orleans, the researchers will present their findings from 93 patients, ages 18 to 80, who randomly got either the new treatment or standard-of-care "supportive" therapy that essentially gives clots a chance to dissolve on their own.

The new study was coordinated by Johns Hopkins and the surgical review centers at the University of Cincinnati and the University of Chicago. All 93 patients were diagnosed with ICH, a particularly lethal or debilitating form of stroke long considered surgically untreatable under most circumstances.

"The last untreatable form of stroke may well have a treatment," says study leader Daniel F. Hanley, M.D., a professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "If a larger study proves our findings correct, we may substantially reduce the burden of strokes for patients and their families by increasing the number of people who can be independent again after suffering a stroke."

ICH is a bleed in the brain that causes a clot to form, often caused by uncontrolled high blood pressure. The clot builds up pressure and leaches inflammatory chemicals that can cause irreversible brain damage, often leading to death or extreme disability. The standard of care for ICH patients is general supportive care, usually in an ICU; only 10 percent undergo the more invasive and risky craniotomy surgery, which involves removing a portion of the skull and making incisions through healthy brain tissue to reach and remove the clot. Roughly 50 percent of people who suffer an intracerebral hemorrhage die from it.

Although in the United States just 15 percent of stroke patients have ICH, that rate translates to roughly 30,000 to 50,000 individuals -- more often than not, Asians, Hispanics, African-Americans, the elderly and those who lack access to medical care. The more common form of stroke is ischemic stroke, which occurs when an artery supplying blood to the brain is blocked.

Surgeons performed the minimally invasive procedure by drilling a dime-sized hole in each patient's skull close to the clot location.

Using a CT scan that Hanley likens to "GPS for the brain," they guided the catheter through the hole and directly into the clot. The catheter was then used to drip small doses of the clot-busting drug t-PA into the clot for a couple of days, shrinking the clots roughly 20 percent per day. Those patients who underwent supportive therapy saw their clots shrink by about 5 percent per day.

A major advantage is that the minimally invasive surgery busted the clot without the potentially injurious side effects associated with craniotomy, Hanley says.

The minimally invasive approach was also found to be as safe as general supportive therapy, which can involve intense blood pressure control, artificial ventilation, drugs to control swelling and watchful waiting for the clot to dissipate on its own.

For the new study, patients were treated at more than two dozen sites throughout the United States, Canada and Europe, by staff neurologists and surgeons. Hanley says it's a bonus that patients don't need specialized equipment to have the procedure done.

"More extensive surgery probably helps get rid of the clot, but injures the brain," he says. "This 'minimalist approach' probably does just as much to clear the clot while apparently protecting the brain."

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Breastfeeding linked to improved lung function at school-age, especially with asthmatic mothers

Islamabad, Feb 7 : Breastfeeding is associated with improved lung function at school age, particularly in children of asthmatic mothers, according to a new study from researchers in Switzerland and the UK.
"In our cohort of school age children, breastfeeding was associated with modest improvement in forced mid-expiratory flow (FEF50) in our whole group and with improvements in forced vital capacity (FVC) and forced expiratory volume at 1 second (FEV1) only in the children of asthmatic mothers," said Claudia E. Kuehni, MD, MSc, professor at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Bern. "In contrast, some earlier studies have suggested that breastfeeding might be harmful in the offspring of mothers with asthma."

The findings were published online ahead of print publication in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

The researchers analyzed data from a nested sample of 1458 children from the Leicestershire cohort studies, born between 1993 and 1997 in the UK. They assessed duration of breastfeeding, other exposures and respiratorysymptoms by repeated questionnaires. Post-bronchodilator FVC, FEV1, peak expiratory flow rates (PEF), FEF50 and skinprick tests were measured at age 12.

In the entire sample of children, FEF50was significantly higher in breastfed children compared with those who were not breastfed, increasing by 0.130 L/sec (P=.048) in those breastfed for 4-6 months and 0.164 L/sec (P=.041) in those breastfed for more than six months. These effects were larger among children of mothers with asthma, with increases of 0.375 L/sec (P=.015) in those breastfed for 4-6 months and 0.468 L/sec (P=.009) in those breastfed for more than six months. Significant improvements in FVC and FEV1with breastfeeding were seen only in the children of asthmatic mothers. Adjustments for respiratory infections in infancy and asthma and atopy in childhood did not change the results of these analyses.

The study had several limitations, including a modest response rate of the original cohort for laboratory examinations and the use of self-report for determining duration of breastfeeding, maternal asthma and infections during infancy.

"We observed modest improvements in lung function in breastfed children in our cohort, including the children of mothers with asthma. Furthermore, our data suggest that rather than acting by reducing respiratory infections, asthma or allergy, breastfeeding might have a direct effect on lung growth," said Dr. Kuehni. "This study supports a strong recommendation for breastfeeding in all children, including those with asthmatic mothers."

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Schizophrenia: When hallucinatory voices suppress real ones, new electronic application may help

Islamabad, Feb 7 : When a patient afflicted with schizophrenia hears inner voices something is taking place inside the brain that prevents the individual from perceiving real voices. A simple electronic application may help the patient learn to shift focus.

"The patient experiences the inner voices as 100 per cent real, just as if someone was standing next to him and speaking" explains Professor Kenneth Hugdahl of the University of Bergen. "At the same time, he can't hear voices of others actually present in the same room."

Auditory hallucinations are one of the most common symptoms associated with schizophrenia.

Dr Hugdahl's research group has made use of a variety of neuroimaging techniques, including functional magnetic resonance imaging technology (fMRI) to enable them quite literally to see what happens inside the brain when the inner voices make their presence known. The project received funding under the NevroNor national initiative on neuroscientific research administered under the auspices of the Research Council of Norway

Images of patients' brains reveal a spontaneous activation of neurons in a particular area of the brain -- specifically the rear, upper region of the left temporal lobe. This is the area responsible for speech perception, and when healthy people hear speech it becomes activated. So what happens when patients with schizophrenia hear a real voice and a hallucinatory one at the same time?

"It would be natural to assume that neural activity would increase somewhat -- even twofold. But quite the opposite takes place; we actually observed that the activity ceased altogether," states Professor Hugdahl.

In order to learn more about what was happening, Hugdahl and his colleagues Kristiina Kompus and René Westerhausen carried out a meta-analysis of 23 studies. These studies focused either on spontaneous inner-voice triggered neural activation in subjects with schizophrenia or the stimulatory reaction prompted by actual sounds in both healthy and schizophrenic subjects.

It emerged that many researchers had observed either that a spontaneous activation of neurons occurs in patients hearing inner voices or that the patients' perception of actual voices becomes suppressed when these are heard simultaneously with inner voices. No one had seen the connection between these findings.

"Previously, we thought these were two separate phenomena. But our analyses revealed that the one causes the other: when neurons become activated by inner voices it inhibits perception of outside speech. The neurons become 'preoccupied' and can't 'process' voices from the outside," explains Professor Hugdahl.

"This may explain why schizophrenic patients close themselves off so completely and lose touch with the outside world when experiencing hallucinations," he purports.

Electronic app designed to improve impulse control

Hugdal and his colleagues made yet another discovery that may well help explain how the lives of these individuals become consumed by inner voices. It turns out that the frontal lobe in the brains of schizophrenia patients does not function exactly the way it should. As a result, these patients have a lesser degree of impulse control and are unable to filter out their inner voices.

"Every one of us hears inner voices or melodies from time to time. The difference between non-afflicted individuals and schizophrenia patients is that the former manage to tune these out better," the professor points out.

If patients could learn to stifle inner noise it could have a huge impact on our ability to treat schizophrenia, he states. To this end, Professor Hugdahl's research group has developed an application that can be used on mobile phones and other simple electronic devices, to help patients improve their filters.

Wearing headphones, the patient is exposed to simple speech sounds with different sounds played in each ear. The task is to practice hearing the sound in one ear while blocking out sound in the other. The application has only been tested on two patients with schizophrenia so far. The response from these patients is promising, Dr Hugdahl relates.

"The voices are still there, but the test subjects feel that they have control over the voices instead of the other way around. The patient feels it is a breakthrough since it means he can actively shift his focus from the inner voices over to the sounds coming from the outside," the professor explains.

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