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Retention phase is fundamental in orthodontic treatment. Around 70% of patients are subjected to relapse postorthodontic treatment. The risk of relapse can be minimized by prescribing a retainer suitable to a patient's pre-treatment clinical condition and based on retention characteristics of retainers. When removable retainers are prescribed, responsibility of maintaining tooth stability lies on patients. Recent idea has been proposed that removable retainer should be worn indefinitely in order to maintain the treatment result. Therefore, the understanding of retention characteristics of removable retainers is important for promoting patient compliance and satisfaction. This article focuses on reviewing the use of removable retainers in relation to preferences among clinicians, patient acceptability, effectiveness, compliance, as well as retention regimes. An electronic search was conducted in the PubMed/MEDLINE, ScienceDirect and Scopus database. The search was performed up to June 2020 using a variety of keywords including orthodontic retainers, Hawley, vacuum formed and retention. Among the 248 publications that were initially searched, total of 56 publications were finally included. Twenty-seven were observational (6 prospective; 16 cross-sectional, 4 retrospective, and 1 case series), fourteen experimental, fourteen review articles, and one opinion piece. Although quite a number of reviews on removable retainers were available, several significant papers have been published recently. Furthermore, a guideline on retention regime is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a large volume of published studies describing the adverse relationship between treatment non-adherence with tuberculosis treatment outcome. Non-adherence could result in increased risks of prolonged infectiousness, drug resistance, relapse cases and poor survival among tuberculosis patients. Nevertheless, few studies are to be found providing detailed on the reason of defaulting treatment among tuberculosis patients in Malaysia. Hence the goal of this paper is to find out the barriers and motivations factors that affect patients' treatment compliance among our local tuberculosis patients. This is a qualitative study which included 12 in-depth interviews with tuberculosis non-compliance patients who were treated at Institute of Respiratory Medicine, Kuala Lumpur. All the conversations were recorded, transcribed and analysed by using thematic analysis. It was found that low knowledge, self-negative attitudes, traditional believes, negative perceptions towards health caregiver, drug side effects, stigma, financial problems, less family support and work commitments are the barriers that prevent the patients from religiously taking their anti-tuberculosis treatment. Meanwhile, factors that encourage them to continue their treatment were the believes of bad effects of the disease onto their lives and health, good relationship between patient and health caregiver and social support from people around them. In conclusion, non-adherence involved a dynamic influence of individual, socio-economic and treatment-related factors on the patients. The results presented here may facilitate improvement in the activities in promoting compliance among tuberculosis patients in the future which tailored to the patients' specific needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

eToyBox is a learning management system for preschool teachers to improve their health literacy, which ultimately aims to improve children's obesity-related behaviour. As part of the development process of eToyBox, assessment on digital literacy, acceptance of digitization of education materials, and perceived barriers in adopting online learning is needed. Fifty-four preschool teachers under the Community Development Department (KEMAS) in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, and Sarawak, who participated in ToyBox Study Malaysia intervention in 2018, took part in this cross-sectional study. An online self-administered questionnaire was used to assess sociodemographic background, use of communication tools and media, and teacher's views on adapting the ToyBox modules to digital education materials. Respondents were contacted, and questionnaire link was shared through WhatsApp messages. Most participants (74.0%) were Malay females aged 31 to 40 years old. Most participants had internet access (94.4%) and owned at least a smart phone, laptop or tablet (94.4%). Participants perceived their computer skills to be average (75.0%). Majority of respondents (65.0%) reported advanced and higher abilities in word processing and email, but only 22.0% in spreadsheet skills. The main barrier to accessing online material was unstable internet connection (74.1%). Most respondents (90.0%) agree that adapting effective modules to online learning will be beneficial for professional development and teaching practices. In conclusion, most participants supported digitizing Toybox Study Malaysia educational content and were comfortable with its implementation via an online learning platform. The findings from this study can advise future development of online learning materials for preschool teachers in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is an autosomal dominant inherited genetic disease characterized by increased concentrations of low-density lipoprotein (LDL-C) cholesterol in the blood. The risk of premature coronary heart disease in FH patients may increase without early treatment. Advancement in molecular biology techniques has enable early detection and diagnosis of FH. These techniques are cost-effective and have a shorter turnaround time. The current diagnostic tools available for FH diagnosis involving algorithm-based scoring criteria and various molecular diagnosis methods including next-generation sequencing (NGS), Sanger sequencing, Multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) and DNA hybridisation assay are discussed in this review. However, molecular genetic testing is not widely available due to time-consuming procedures, high cost and requires trained personnel. Thus, this review highlights the use of point of care (POC) testing as an approach to diagnose FH, particularly in countries lacking infrastructure and expertise in this field. Lateral flow testing (LFA) has gained attention as a POC diagnostic tool due to its simplicity, low cost and involved simple procedure and settings. The advantages of LFA made this technique a potential tool in addressing challenges in diagnosing FH, particularly for early diagnosis of family members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the systematic process followed in the development of culturally appropriate equalized speech-in-noise sentences suitable for use in an adaptive Speech-In-Noise training protocol for adults in Malaysia. The process involved three iterative phases of development. They were (1) analysis, (2) design and (3) development phases. In the analysis phase, important variables that needed to be considered for speech-in-noise materials were identified through literature review and discussion with the experts in the field. Next, in the design phase, the compilation and formation of sentences, evaluation of naturalness and recording of the speech materials were done. The last phase was the development phase which involved the evaluation of performance intensity function and equalization of intelligibility. The final outcome of these phases were 171 sentences with equal intelligibility that can be used interchangeably in a speech-in-noise training protocol for adults in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioural change interventions for weight loss have been found to be effective in the short term, but their long-term effectiveness remains a question. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the 36 weeks F.E.A.T program combining behavioural changes of healthy eating and physical activity. A quasi-experimental study of overweight adults was conducted in Malacca. A total of 53 subjects (mean age 47.4 ± 7.2 years) completed the program in three stages. In the first stage (T1: weeks 1-12), the intervention group (n = 28) participated in the F.E.A.T program activities, while the control group (n = 25) did not receive the intervention. In the second stage (T2: weeks 13-24), the activity was supervised and monitored by the peer support group. Sustainability of activity was measured at the third stage (T3: weeks 25-36). The effectiveness of the program was measured by changes in dietary intake, physical activity score, body weight, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and body fat percentage at T0 (pre-intervention), T1, T2 and T3. All parameters showed significant interaction effects (time*group) except for energy intake. The intervention group showed significant decreases from T0 to T3 for energy intake (-14.3%), body weight (-4.3%), BMI (-4.2%), WC (-10.5%) and body fat percentage (-3.6%). While physical activity level increased by 109.6% for the intervention group. There were no significant differences in all of these parameters among the control group. The results show the effectiveness of the F.E.A.T program on dietary status and physical activity changes during the 36-week of intervention period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atypical dietary behaviour of children and adolescents with autism make it challenging for their parents to feed a balance diet to them. This qualitative study aims to explore food practices and source of information regarding food practices among caregivers of Malay children and adolescent with autism. A total of 19 caregivers (aged 35-53 years) of Malay children and adolescents with autism (aged 7-18 years) participated in focus group discussions. Respondents were selected using purposive sampling method from three selected special children's educational centers in Selangor and Negeri Sembilan areas. This focus group discussion was transcribed verbatim and analyzed with the assisted qualitative software (NVivo version 11), which several themes were formed. This study found that majority of respondents offered their children sunnah food, Omega-3 suplements and vitamin and mineral suplements, omitted food additives, gluten and casein, seafood, egg and legumes as they thought these may help in improving their children's behavior and health. The main sources of information regarding these food practices were Autism Club Malaysia, internet, doctor and religious teacher. Majority of respondents had never consulted both dietitians or nutritionists. Nutritionists or dietitians should provide scientific evidence information on nutritional practices through autism association and internet to ensure that caregivers can manage their children's nutritional problems more effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One hundred seventy-one patients suffering from chronic renal diseases at Kuala Lumpur Hospital participated in a crosssectional study with purposive sampling to ascertain prevalence rates of Cryptosporidium parvum (C. parvum), Giardia intestinalis (G. intestinalis), Blastocystis hominis (B. hominis) and Strongyloides stercoralis (S. stercoralis). The patients were divided into 2 groups: post-transplant group (138 patients) and pre-transplant group (33 patients). In this study, the parasite infection is linked to the aspects of race, gender, renal patient's group and the postrenal transplantation period. Immunofluorescence staining was performed on fecal slides for the detection of C. parvum oocysts and G. intestinalis cysts. Sand charcoal culture technique was also used to detect the presence of S. strongyloides in fecal samples. The findings showed that the prevalence of C. parvum, G. intestinalis dan B. hominis among post-transplant patients was 18.1%, 10.9% and 22.5%, respectively but none of the pretransplant patient was infected. Meanwhile, both patient groups were free of S. stercoralis infection. Furthermore, there was no significant association between post-transplantation period and pattern in prevalence of the studied parasites, however, it was noted that the prevalence rates of C. parvum and G. intestinalis had declined after 6 months post transplantation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seaweed contains various nutrients that has the potential to be a source of nutritious food, but only a few studies done on the red seaweeds in Malaysia. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the macronutrients content, amino acid profile and fatty acid component in Kappaphycus alvarezii and Kappaphycus striatum. The study found that the range of moisture, fat, ash, protein, fiber and carbohydrates content for both red seaweeds were 6.9% - 7.3%, 0.5% - 2.6%, 29.4% - 30.9%, 2.5% - 5.7% , 5.3% - 5.5% and 50.1% - 53.3% respectively. A total of 16 amino acids were identified in which the essential amino acid for K. alvarezii and K. striatum were 41.11% and 36.15% respectively. A total of 34 fatty acids were identified in which the content of saturated fatty acids (SFA) was the highest (42.7% - 72.8%), followed by mono-unsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) (13.8% - 36.2%) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) was the lowest (13.5% - 21.2%). In conclusion, this study suggest that K. alvarezii and K. striatum are potentially be used as raw materials or food ingredients to improve the nutritional value of the human diet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]