Background: Hypertension, a global public health issue, is a major risk factor for NCDs like stroke, cardiovascular disease and chronic kidney disease. If Hypertension is detected early it is possible to minimize the risk of cardiovascular diseases, stroke and kidney failure. Objectives: To determine the prevalence of hypertension among the age group of >18 years in a rural community of Salem iii. To determine the association between hypertension and selected variables like age, sex, tobacco intake, alcohol intake, physical activity, Body mass index (BMI) and waist hip ratio iv. To assess the level of awareness, treatment and control of hypertensionMethods: A Cross-sectional study was done in a rural community of Salem, Tamil Nadu during March-December 2016 among individuals aged ≥18 years. The final calculated sample size was 256. Convenience sampling method was used. Participants were interviewed using a structured interview schedule, their BP was measured and anthropometric measurements were taken. Hypertension was defined according to JNC VIII criteria. Data entry and analysis was done using IBM SPSS version-21 software. Results: Out of the 442 eligible persons approached 420 persons consented to participate. Prevalence of hypertension was 34%. About 16% of the respondents had never measured their BP in their life time. Increase in age, male gender, increase in BMI levels, tobacco and alcohol were found to be significant independent predictors of hypertension. Awareness, treatment and control of hypertension were found to be 31%, 23.2% and 11.2% respectively. Conclusions: Prevalence of hypertension was high but awareness was poor. It is recommended to advice the community about the risk factors of hypertension and regular BP check-up should be done among the community for early detection of hypertension and also for preventing complications.

Background: Cardiovascular disease accounts for approximately 17 million deaths a year and complications of hypertension accounts for 9.4 million deaths worldwide every year. High blood pressure is a major public health problem in India and its prevalence is rapidly increasing. Cardiovascular disease including hypertension was most common among transport workers. Bus drivers have higher rates of mortality, morbidity and absence due to illness when compared to employees from a wide range of other occupational groups.Methods: This cross sectional study was done in south India, during June to December 2018. A total of 450 participants were selected. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data and summarized using descriptive statistics. A p value of <0.05 was considered significant.Results: Out of the total 450 participants, 125 (27.8%) were hypertensives. Among the hypertensives, 98 (78.4%) participants were smokers, 103 participants (82.4%) had consumed alcohol which was significantly associated with the outcome of hypertension. Lack of physical activity 108 (86.4%), excess salt 108 (86.4%) and fat intake 89 (79.2%) had statistically significant association with hypertension. A higher body mass index and waist to hip ratio more than WHO recommended range was also found to be prone to hypertension.Conclusions: The study revealed higher prevalence of hypertension was found among the drivers group compared to conductors and desk workers. Regular periodic examinations with alleviation of the above lifestyle and occupational risk factors among the three groups with special attention to drivers would help achieve apt ergonomics.

Change in diet life style and increased life expectancy has led to the dramatic escalation in old age related complication like cognitive decline leading to dementia. Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are huge risk factors for dementia, including Alzheimer disease (AD). Hypertension is very well known to cause cognitive impairment. Control of CVD could provide protection against dementia. Earlier in the mouse model of AD, reserpine, an antihypertensive and antipsychotic drug could elicit improvement in the working memory in AD model mice and enhance the same in normal mice. Hence, Cognitive protection in the patients on chronic antihypertensive drug which contains reserpine was evaluated. Cognition in a cohort (in the South Indian rural population) of hypertensive patients (majority age group 50 to 70 years) who have been chronically treated with a combinatorial drug(adelphane/adelphane esidrexsodl by Novaritis Switzerland) consisting of reserpine and hydrazine for years was compared with controls without hypertension. The cohorts were age sex socio-economic education background matched. Cognition was scored using the Tamil version of: Addenbrooke Cognitive Examination-III (ACEIII (Tamil)) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (Tamil) scales. The composite ACEIII (Tamil) score of control and treated groups were 53.6 and 53.2 respectively. MoCA(tamil) scores (Control :15.1 and Treated: 14.7) did not show much alteration. Further the mean scores of the control and treated groups individual components of cognition in ACE, namely Attention Memory Fluency Language and visuospatial cognitive skills also did not reveal significant difference. Thus controlling blood pressure or hypertension with chronic antihypertensive medication like adelphane/adelphane esirdex (reserpine containing drugs) has retained normal cognition in both genders.

Background: Refractive error is an avoidable cause of visual impairment. Children do not complain of defective vision. This warrants early detection and treatment. The study was conducted with the objective of estimating the prevalence of refractive error in school children and its associated factors.Methods: This was a cross sectional study conducted in schools of selected district in Tamil Nadu from July 2017 to January 2018. Sample size of 422 covered. A semi structured questionnaire was used to collect the details and also screened for refractive errors. Data was analysed using SPSS.Results: Among the 422 students screened, 86 (20.4%) had refractive error. The prevalence of refractive error showed significant association with age, education and occupation of parents, socio economic status, parental history of refractive error, duration of watching television and body mass index.Conclusions: Refractive errors among school children can be easily identified by regular eye screening programmes, promptly treated can be protected from future complications. Periodic screening of school children is very essential to improve the quality of eye-sight.

INTRODUCTIONHeavy alcohol drinking is a major public health problem in most of the developing countries.1 Alcohol dependence is the second most common psychiatric condition. Each year, about 3.3 million deaths is caused by alcohol consumption and this is the main causal factor for about 200 various diseases that contributes about 5.9% deaths. 2As per WHO, 2010 report total global consumption was equal to 6.2 litre per person aged more than 15 years.Alcohol consumption is continuously increasing in our country and the percentage of alcohol dependents also constantly increasing. Nowadays, alcohol dependency is a very big social issue and personal threat in many societies.3 Socio cultural factors, influence of genetic and biological predisposition contribute to alcohol dependence. Alcohol dependence leads to many complications like GIT, CNS complications, malnutrition and social complications like occupational problems criminality, financial problems etc. The overall quality of ABSTRACT Background: Heavy alcohol drinking is a major public health problem in most of the developing countries. Each year about 3.3 million deaths is caused by alcohol consumption and this is the main causal factor for about 200 various diseases that contributes about 5.9% deaths. Quality of life (QoL) is affected in alcohol dependents significantly. This study was conducted to determine the QoL of alcohol dependent patients in government de-addiction centre and to study the factors associated with the QoL of alcohol dependents. Methods: Across sectional study done using validated semi structured questionnaire contains sociodemographic details, SADD and WHO QoL-BREF-26 questionnaire. Results: Almost half of the participants (46.7%) were less than 30 years old. The major portion of the participants (70%) belonged to the lower class. Almost half of them (46.6%) were either unmarried or separated. Major portion of the participants of the study population are having medium (46.67%) and high level (40%) of dependence. Around 83.3%of the participants were affected by any one of the psychiatric co-morbidities. Around 2/3 rd of participants (66.7%) are started to work before the legal age to work. Half of the alcohol dependents (53.33%) having family members with harmful alcohol intake behaviour. The mean baseline score of QoL of study subjects were compared to the mean scores of the healthy individuals. Conclusions: The QoL is the most valuable tool for the interventional management and designing the management programme. Around 80% of the study population are literate and 90% of the study population having good intention towards recovery.