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BACKGROUND: Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSDs) are one of the main causes of morbidity among healthcare professionals. It has various secondary consequences on productivity by diminishing the quantity and quality of work completed by the affected personnel, in addition to having a primary impact on the individual with pain and discomfort. OBJECTIVE: The study aims to determine the overall prevalence rate of WRMSD among dentists, physiotherapists, and surgeons and also identify the commonly affected regions of the body about specific health care professions among each of the three professions, as recorded by the cross-sectional studies performed in various countries and regions of the world. METHODS: A systematic search strategy was framed following the PRISMA guidelines based on the present inclusion and exclusion criteria. A critical search of articles was conducted during June 2020 in CINAHL (DOAJ), PubMed, Google Scholar Scopus, PEDro databases and SAGE journals. RESULTS: Out of the 42 articles that met the eligibility criteria, there were 39 cross-sectional studies, 2 pilot cross-sectional surveys and 1 prospective cohort study with one-year follow-up. All studies included in this review used various survey tools for recording the demographic details and measuring the prevalence of WRMSDs and other outcome factors. CONCLUSION: We conclude that all three health care professionals (dentists, physiotherapists and surgeons) are highly prone to develop WRMSDs with surgeons and dentists being more vulnerable when compared to physiotherapists. The lower back and neck are identified as the two most commonly affected regions among all three professionals.

BACKGROUND: Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive stress. Burnout weakens the energy of an individual which reduces productivity and leaves this individual helpless, hopeless, cynical, and resentful. Thus, an early diagnosis of this syndrome has to be done and ways to prevent the level of progression and complication of burnout syndrome has to be planned. OBJECTIVE: To determine the efficacy of self-supervised Jacobson’s relaxation technique along with Bhastrika Pranayama in reducing the level of burnout among the work-from-home IT professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHOD: Thirty participants with burnout syndrome were randomly divided into two groups (15 participants in each group) using random allocation. The experimental group received Jacobson’s relaxation technique along with Bhastrika Pranayama, whereas the control group received diaphragmatic breathing exercises and chest expansion exercises. Pre-test and post-test values using Maslach Burnout Inventory were used to interpret the results. RESULTS: Data collected were analyzed statistically by the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. It shows that there is a significant reduction in the level of burnout in the experimental group when compared to the control group at a p-value of 0.001. CONCLUSION: From the results, it is concluded that Jacobson’s relaxation technique along with diaphragmatic breathing exercises showed significant improvement in the reduction of burnout levels.

Introduction and Aim: Fatigue is the prodromal symptom occurring as the earliest symptom even before motor symptoms. It has been unidentified, which also proves to be an untouched symptom for intervention. Little has been understood how men and women feel fatigued. The objective of this study is to find the correlation between fatigue and quality of life among men and women with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (PD). Materials and Methods: Recommended scale for fatigue as fatigue severity score and a biomarker salivary cortisol was correlated against the quality-of-life questionnaire as PDQ-39 among 25 PD male and female patients. Results: Females are found to show significantly higher values compared to males in PDQ and salivary cortisol. F values are significant for PDQ and salivary cortisol only (p < 0.01) when compared to the H/Y scale (‘r’ = 0.420). Conclusion: Females reported more fatigue and poor quality of life. Salivary cortisol can be a useful biomarker to measure and infer the level of fatigue which had been only feeling reported by the patients until now.

Idiopathic Parkinson’s disease is the second most debilitating and progressive neurodegenerative disease affecting the functional activities in day-to-day life. The motor and non-motor symptoms have shown to be a huge functional loss for the subject which has led to compromise their independence. There are varieties of treatment programs proposed as pharmacological, surgical, rehabilitation, allied therapies but none have proven to be the disease modifying treatments in managing the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease patients. Research has shown that discontinuity in the treatment and diminished effects of treatments have drained care givers physically, emotionally, and financially. In this study we explore the available physiotherapy treatment strategies highlighting the research gaps in articles (n=36). The articles were taken from the databases such as PubMed, Science Direct and Google Scholar by considering the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Though the present research has shown to be significant in improving the motor and non-motor symptoms there are still unanswered questions on the rehabilitation protocols whether they can modify the disease and improve the quality of life among Parkinson’s disease in long term. Exercise have proven to be beneficial, cost effective and low risk which improves the overall health and independence of the patient, however, the mechanism involved are less understood.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 emerged as a serious pandemic in 2019 and billions of people were infected. Various precautionary methods were taken to contain the spread of virus such as social distancing, public lockdown, sanitation, and closure of schools and colleges. Many colleges started online classes to resume their syllabus and to complete the course curriculum. These evening online sessions resulted in late night sleep, long term mobile/computer exposure, and disturbed sleep pattern. OBJECTIVE: The present study aimed to determine the impact of COVID-19 online classes on morningness- eveningness personality and to compare it with different age groups, gender, and body mass index. METHODS: The cluster sampling method was used to collect the subjects from the total of 1153 adult college students, 897 subjects were selected based on the selection criteria and instructed to submit an online survey consists of the Morningness-eveningness Questionnaire and demographic and anthropometric data through mail, social media, or through a researcher by direct interview. RESULTS: The mean score for the 897 participants is 56.7, indicating intermediate morningness-eveningness personality type. On comparing the different groups, the youngest group (18–20 years) scored 4.23%(mean = 46.7), female subjects scored 6.13%(mean = 58.1), the underweight 2.67%(mean = 59.2) and overweight groups scored 2.89%(mean = 59.7) indicating definite eveningness. Among the 897 collected samples of the population 8.13%of the subjects experienced definite eveningness, 14.93%has moderate eveningness, 17.38%are under intermediate category, 22.4%have moderate morningness, and 37.11%have definite morningness. CONCLUSIONS: Subjects with eveningness personality have high risk of developing mental illness, thus it’s important to determine the eveningness personality among student population to avoid serious complications in later age.

BACKGROUND: Many countries adopted a complete or partial lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and various professions started to work-from-home. People who work-from-home experience constant stress which leads to burnout syndrome. Burnout can be defined as a chronic stress-induced occupational syndrome resulting in fatigue, decreased job productivity, and poor motivation towards the job. OBJECTIVE: This research work primarily focuses on exploring the prevalence of burnout syndrome among IT professionals who work-from-home and to determine the impact of burnout in different gender and age-groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Using snowball sampling method 934 IT professionals were selected based on selection criteria, explained about the study processes, and instructed to submit an online survey consist of Maslach Burnout Inventory scale (MBI) through mail, social media, or through a researcher by direct interview. RESULTS: Descriptive statistics were used to interpret the data. In 25–30 years age-group, men were affected (93%) less than women (94%) and also in 31–35 years age-group, men were affected (96%) less than women (98%). Overall burnout scores of men were 94% and women were 96%. Results indicate female IT professionals were more prone experience burnout syndrome than Male population. CONCLUSIONS: From the results, it is concluded that 95% of the IT professionals are suffering from burnout, where women are more prevalent to burnout when compared to male. It is also suggested that an early, routine and frequent assessment of physical status, mental status and burnout syndrome is essential to maintain mental health.