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Objective: To translate and culturally adapt the Telugu version of Quality-of-Life tool among Spinal Cord Injury patients. Method: It’s a prospective cross-sectional study conducted at a tertiary neuro centre care hospital. The English version was translated into Telugu by two expert medical professionals and cross-checked by three experts in Telugu vocabulary. Nursing students who had good proficiency in reading and writing in English and Telugu languages were chosen for checking tool reliability. Initially English language was administered on the satisfaction domain followed by the importance domain one month apart. After two months Telugu version was administered in the same way as the English version. The reliability analysis was done. Results: The tool was administered to 50 nursing students. The Cronbach’s alpha for the satisfaction domain was 0.97 and the importance domain was 0.91, indicating excellent reliability. Conclusion: The Telugu version of the QOL tool had excellent reliability. Therefore it can be administered in the Telugu language for evaluating the quality of life of people with spinal cord injury.

Introduction: Demographic and clinical profile of traumatic brain injury (TBI) of a particular place is very crucial for strengthening the guidelines. The details of same are scant from a tertiary institute, Nellore district. The present study aims to explore the demographic, injury and clinical aspects of cerebro-cranial injury patients from an institute setup. Methods: The study consists of two years retrospective data and one year prospective data. The study was approved by institute ethical committee. The patient data was entered on pre designed proforma that includes the desired variables. The data analysis was done using StatsDirect software. Both prospective and retrospective data was merged for analysis. Percentages for categorical data and mean values for continuous data were calculated. Results: There were total of 336 patients. Patients in age group of 21 to 50 years constituted 67% and males were four times higher than females. Nearly one fourth of patients were influenced by alcohol. Three fourth of accidents were due to road traffic accidents (RTAs) followed by falls (17%) and assault (6%). About one tenth of patients were pedestrians. One fourth of patients had associated injuries other than head and brain. On CT findings majority of patients had cerebral contusion (46%) followed by skull fracture (40%), SDH (28%) and EDH (23%). Twenty two patients died in the study period. Conclusion: Knowledge of injury and its later consequences to public is very important. Strict rules to consider safety precautions and compulsory family insurances should be encouraged. Rules to prevent paediatric drive.

Introduction: There are multiple factors from injury spot till patient reach trauma unit, which affect their outcome. The literature of same from developing country is mere. The present study investigates primary care, mode of transportation and emergency management among TBI patients visiting a tertiary institute. Methods: The data of 337 patients was selected from a trauma registry. The data of TBI patients visiting emergency were entered in standard computer interface after obtaining their consent. The standard proforma was developed by FileMaker Pro Advanced 13 (Copyright © 1994-2015, FileMaker, Inc) and web data entry interface Drupal CMS. Data was analyzed using Stats Direct version 3.0.150. Results: Seventy five percent of patients were from rural setup. About 67% of patients visiting emergency had undergone first aid from both rural and urban setup. Forty percent of patients came directly, only about 5% were referred from other hospitals. Majority of patients were accompanied by relatives (87%) followed by spouse (8.6%). Non ambulance mode (31%) was more than ground ambulance (25%) to reach emergency setup. Emergency management of airway, breathing and circulation was significant with outcome at discharge (p

Introduction. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is affected by multiple factors. Patient’s education, manifesting symptoms and surgical management play a significant role on discharge outcome. The literature of same from developing country is limited. The present pilot study aims to describe patient characteristics, presenting symptom and management aspects of TBI patients from a tertiary hospital. Methods. The present study is a prospective study, where TBI patients were selected and data of injury was entered on standard proforma on electronic data base. The study was approved by institute ethical board. The data was analyzed using Stats Direct version 3.0.150 software. Results. Three hundred and thirty three patients were evaluated. Eighty percent of patients were from rural areas. About 75% of patients were illiterates and married. Patient employment was significant with discharge outcome. All the patients manifested with symptoms loss of consciousness (LOC) was higher (73%) followed by vomiting (44%). LOC and oral bleed was significant with outcome. Associated injuries was higher in extremities (22.5%) followed by chest (4.4%). About 15% of patients require intracranial surgery that was significant with discharge outcome. Conclusion. The present pilot study finding is similar to available literature data and adds knowledge to TBI data of a developing country like India.

Background: Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) is recognized as a serious public health problem resulting in significant morbidity, mortality and permanent disability. The present study is aimed to describe the epidemiological characteristics and outcome of patients with traumatic spinal cord injury in rural tertiary referral care center form South India. Material and methods: The present study was conducted at Narayana Medical College and Hospital, Nellore. All patients admitted and managed for traumatic spinal cord injury were retrieved and data collected in a pre-designed proforma. Patient characteristics, details of etiology, mechanism of injury, level of injury, extent of neurological deficits, details of investigations, details of management and immediate outcome were recorded. Results: A total 152 patients were included in the present study. The mean age was 38.45 years and majority the patients were young adult males. The mean hospital stay was 19.12 days. 71.7% percent patients were non-agriculture workers (mainly involved in construction work) and 28.3% patients were farmers. 61.2% of the patients sustained injuries due to fall from height and 34.2% patients sustained injuries due road traffic accidents. Cervical spine injuries were most common (44.1%), followed by thoraco-lumbar region (36.8%) and dorsal spinal region (19.1%). 9 patients expired in post-injury during hospital stay and all of them had complete cervical spinal cord injury. All patients received aggressive rehabilitation care. Conclusion: In accordance with the literature our results reflect that traumatic spinal cord injuries affect young population and can leave these persons with significant functional and physical morbidity. The major limitation of the study is that it is a single institution based and may not reflect the true spectrum of traumatic spinal cord injuries in the population.