No abstract

Pandemic and advancing technologies have surged the use of Telemedicine services in every medical care field. Its implications have been in the arena of Ayurveda as well. The extent of practice and knowledge among Ayurvedic physicians is yet to be studied. Study to determine how much and what kind of knowledge Ayurvedic physicians have about Telemedicine. Google form survey-based cross-sectional study among Ayurvedic physicians in Kerala via WhatsApp. The questionnaire was developed based on in-depth interviews among Ayurveda physicians from each speciality, which is pretested to confirm reliability and validity tested using Split half and Cronbach’s alpha test (alpha coefficient =0.48). Cross tabs of the variables and various factors of telemedicine practice were worked out to see the relationship. More than half of the participants (54.8%) do not practice telemedicine. Among those practising telemedicine, 90% of participants commenced during the pandemic. All the practitioners in the government sector started with telemedicine due to the pandemic, while a small share of private practitioners (5.9%) cast off it before. The majority had not gone through the guidelines issued on telemedicine. 54% of government practitioners are dissatisfied, while 60% of private practitioners are content. Practices like consent-taking hardly apply. Acceptability and applicability of Telemedicine among Ayurveda physicians are slow. Addition of Medico-legal and technological education as a part of the curriculum is the need of the hour to catch up with the cumulative numeral of “e-patients”.

Background Coronary Artery disease (CAD) accounts for one-third or more of all deaths in individuals over 35 years of age. In Ayurveda, umbrella term Hrdroga encompasses the concept of CAD. Vegadharana , suppression of natural urges is a lifestyle error that has been denoted as a potential risk factor of Hrdroga, but there is a lacuna of convincing research works. Objective The present study is designed to assess and evaluate the association of Purisavegadharana , Baspa v egadharana (bowel, tear suppression) with CAD. Materials and methods Study followed case-control design; Cases (110) were patients aged above 18 years of either sex, diagnosed with CAD in a duration less than or equal to 10 years, attending outpatient department (OPD) of an Allopathy and Ayurveda hospital. The controls (110) included hospital controls from same hospitals. Exposure status was assessed through Case Record Form (CRF), Bowel suppression and Tear suppression assessment Questionnaires, interview with patients and scrutiny of past medical records. Odds ratios and chi-square tests were computed. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves of logistic regression models fitted were generated and optimal cut-off points for bowel and tear suppression scores were derived through Youden index. Results Tear suppression and bowel suppression showed odds ratio of 4.47 and 2.30 respectively. Other commendable predisposing factors were age above 60 years, family history of disease and use of medication. Highest odds ratio from logistic regression was for palpitation (8.67) and followed by tobacco use (6.23). Conclusion Study indicated high association of bowel and tear suppression with CAD along with other predisposing factors, prominent of which were palpitation and use of tobacco use.