Development of a Multivariate Prognostic Model for Pain and Activity Limitation in People With Low Back Disorders Receiving Physiotherapy

Objective

To identify predictors for back pain, leg pain, and activity limitation in patients with early persistent low back disorders (LBDs).

Understanding Interactions Between Chinese Medicines and Pharmaceutical Drugs in Integrative Healthcare

In the 21 st century,the public are more informed,mainly via the Internet,about health and medical products and have become more knowledgeable about matters relating to their health conditions and well-being in curing and preventing illnesses.They often self-medicate themselves with various health products and over-the-counter(OTC) medicines apart from prescribed pharmaceutical drugs(PD).Some of those non-prescribed products may have doubtful quality control and contain harmful additives or unchecked ingredients;thus their usefulness is in doubt.The increasing popularity world-wide of using Chinese medicines(CM) and related OTC functional products has raised concerns over their concomitant use with PD and the consequential adverse effects.In most cases the alleged causes of adverse effects are linked with herbal sources,although the authorised information on the interactions between CM-PD is not plentiful in the literature.There is an urgent need for such a data base.The future professionals in health and medical care should be knowledgeable or aware of what their patients have been taking or given.In actual practice the patients may receive both treatments intentionally or unintentionally,with or without the awareness of the practitioner.In these situations a reliable database for interactions between CM-PD will be extremely useful for consultation when treatment problems appear or during emergency situations.Their combining of medications may be involved with possible outcomes of adverse reactions or beneficial effects.Such a database will be welcomed by both practitioners of herbal medicines and orthodox medicine practitioners in the emerging trend of integrative medicine.The author has been involved in various research projects of basic and clinical aspects in mainly CM among other herbal and PD.Examples will be given largely on those related to these disciplines as illustrations in this overview.     

Utility of Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio (NLR) as a Predictor of Acute Infarction in New-Onset Acute Vertigo Patients Without Neurologic and Computed Tomography Abnormalities

Background

Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) has been used as a predictive marker for various conditions. However, there are no previous studies about NLR as a prognostic marker for acute infarction.