Background. Stroke is a leading cause of disability and requires continued care after hospital discharge. Mobile-based interventions are suitable to reduce the cost of stroke rehabilitation and facilitate self-management among stroke survivors. However, before attempting to use mobile-based home exercise program, it is crucial to recognize the readiness of stroke survivors and their caregivers to opt for such interventions. Objective. To assess the acceptability and attitude towards a mobile-based home exercise program among stroke survivors and their primary caregivers. Methods. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 102 participants to understand their attitude and acceptability towards mobile-based home exercise program. A validated 10-item questionnaire was adapted for the study. The questions which assessed the attitude were rated on a three-point Likert scale, with three denoting agree and one denoting disagree. The acceptability was assessed by their willingness to opt for a mobile-based home program services. A Chi-square analysis and cross-tabulation were performed to test differences between caregivers and patients. A logistic regression was performed to determine the effects of age, gender, and mobile phone on acceptability. Results. Ninety-two percent of caregivers and 90% of patients showed willingness to opt for mobile-based intervention. Majority of the participants showed a positive attitude towards this mode of treatment. There was no difference in the attitude noted among caregivers and patients (p>0.05) towards mobile-based intervention. Conclusion. The stroke survivors and caregivers welcomed the concept of mobile-based home exercise program even in a low-resource settings, but further studies to understand treatment and cost-effectiveness of this technology among the stroke survivors would lead to better implementation.

The preterm very low birth weight infants are at high risk of developing neurodevelopmental delay despite little or no medical complications at the time of birth. The care and interventions of such infants have an impact on the pre-existing risk. The Developmental Care Interventions (DCI) are the range of treatment strategies aiming to alleviate the risk thereby improving neuro-developmental outcomes. The objective of this review is to appraise the range of such interventions for preterm very low birth weight infants reported in the literature. This review will help clinicians to adopt developmental intervention strategy to improve the neuro-developmental outcomes of their NICU graduates.

Introduction and Aim: Attention plays a huge role in cognitive processes like comprehension and reasoning. Lack of focused attention and easy distractibility adversely affects learning. It has been observed that the optimal attention span of medical students was about twenty minutes which is not quiet adequate. There is a need for improving attention of learners to sustain their ability to focus. Yoga addresses this need. Hence this study was taken up to assess the effectiveness of yoga on sustained and divided attention in Medical students. Materials and Methods: This is a cross sectional, interventional study done on sixty healthy  volunteer Medical Students in the age group of 18-22 years. Thirty volunteer students formed the yoga group and thirty participated in the study but did not perform yoga. Attention tests namely, Digit vigilance test, Colour trail test 1 and 2 were administered for all participants. Yoga training was conducted by yoga expert with a curated yoga module for one hour daily evening for 30 hours. Same tests were repeated following intervention. Results: A significant reduction in the completion timings of all attention tests were observed post intervention in the yoga group.  A reduction in the number of errors in DVT was also noted in the same group. Conclusion: A pronounced improvement in sustained and focused attention along with enhanced attention control processing, was observed post intervention. This indicates that the yoga module has been effective in improving the mental focus of Medical Students.  Regular Yoga practice complements in improving attention in medical students thus facilitating their academic performance.

The preterm very low birth weight infants are at high risk of motor developmental delays. The developmental screening tools used by health professionals in pediatric practice serves several purposes viz. as a discriminative screening tool to identify the developmental delay in such high risk infants; as an evaluation tool to quantify the levels of functional skills achieved; as a prognostic tool to quantify the changes in levels of functional skills following specific developmental care interventions and as a predictive tool to predict the quantum of existing or impending neuro-developmental disability in high risk infants. Thus developmental screening tools serves as an integral part of early intervention programs. Such screening tools also serve as program evaluation strategy in quantifying the efficacy of early developmental care intervention programs. This review is aimed at describing the properties of developmental screening tools for motor developmental delay in preterm infants.J Nepal Paediatr Soc 2015;35(2):162-167