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Objective To evaluate and discuss the outcomes of the universal newborn hearing screening program conducted at four public hospitals in Malaysia. Method A retrospective analysis of the universal newborn hearing screening database from each hospital was performed. The database consisted of 28,432 and 30,340 screening results of babies born in 2015 and 2016, respectively. Quality indicators (coverage rate, referral rate, return for follow-up rate, and ages at screening and diagnosis) were calculated. Results Overall coverage rate across the four hospitals was 75% in 2015 and 87.4% in 2016. Over the two years, the referral rates for the first screening ranged from 2.7% to 33.93% with only one hospital achieving the recommended benchmark of <4% in both years. The return for follow-up rates for each participating hospital was generally below the recommended benchmark of ≥95%. The mean age at screening was 3.9 ± 1.2 days and 3.3 ± 0.4 days, respectively. The mean age at diagnosis for 70 infants diagnosed with permanent hearing loss was 4.7 ± 0.7 months in 2015 and 3.6 ± 0.9 months in 2016. Conclusions Quality measures for the universal newborn hearing screening program in four public hospitals in Malaysia were lower than the required standards. Nevertheless, some quality indicators showed statistically significant improvements over the two years. Next steps involve identifying and implementing the best practice strategies to improve the outcome measures and thus the quality of the program.

Background: Cross section thickness of core muscles (CM) muscles such as internal oblique (IO), external oblique (EO), transverse abdominis (TrA) and lumbar multifidus (LM) was strongly associated with low back pain. Active straight-leg raise test (ASLR) and prone hip extension (PHE) tests were commonly used as assessments in low back pain. This study aimed to investigate the changes in core muscle thickness during ASLR and PHE using real time ultrasonography (RTUS). This study was conducted to understand the clinical reasoning behind the contemporary practice of using ASLR and PHE test as clinical tests to assess lumbo pelvic stability. Methods: A total of 33 healthy subjects (17 males and 16 females) were recruited from an orthopaedic department of University hospital. The subjects were instructed to lift their legs for about 20 cms from the bed while performing ASLR and PHE. The cross-section thicknesses of the LM and (IO, EO, and TA) were measured using RTUS during PHE and ASLR. The changes in CM thickness of the limb that performed ASLR & PHE were compared with the resting limb on the contra lateral side by paired t test.Results: There were significant increase in the thickness of the CM (IO, EO and TA) on the limb that performed ASLR when compared with the resting limb on the contra lateral side (p<0.05). Conclusion: The pattern of change in cross sectional thickness of CM indicated that IO,EO, TA increased in size significantly on the limb that was lifted during ASLR test. This finding supports that CM are involved during ASLR and explains the clinical reasoning for using ASLR test to assess lumbo pelvic stability.http://dx.Background and purpose: Previous studies reported inconsistent results concerning the association between Body Mass Index (BMI), Knee Osteoarthritis (OA) and other demographic risk factors. The objective of this study were:(1) to investigate the prevalence of overweight and obesity among patients with knee OA and (2) to examine the relationship between BMI and their socio-demographic factors such as age, gender and race among knee OA. Methods: 140 OA knee subjects which comprised of all three races such as Malay, Chinese and Indian (114 female and 26 male) aged between 40-78 years with mean AE SD age of 58.7 AE 8.951, were recruited over a year from a government hospital. Subjects diagnosed with unilateral or bilateral knee OA, independent or required minimal aid in walking are included and those who underwent knee surgery are excluded. Data was collected using a health information questionnaire which consisted of demographic and anthropometric details. Descriptive and inferential statistics such as Chisquare tests were used to analyze the data. Results: The results of the study showed the overall prevalence rates of overweight and obesity were 55.7% and 25.7% respectively among OA knee patients. Among OA knee patients, the prevalence of overweight (51.3%) and obesity (38.9%) with in BMI was higher among Malay females. Conclusion: This study has showed that the prevalence of overweight ...