Spinal Cord October 2014
771 For those who are just beginning their journey in reading and understanding journal articles, one of the many concepts difficult to grasp straight away is ‘Conflict of Interests’. Experts please skip to the last sentence. My favorite illustration of the concept: Tom & Jerry. Tom’s natural instinct (interest 1) is to go after Jerry. Assume he’s given the responsibility of babysitting Jerry (interest 2), then this interest-2 is in direct conflict with his interest-1. Unless proven otherwise, interest-1 always supersedes interest-2. Now, let’s change the characters. Tom is now Mr.X, a researcher employed by an all-powerful drug company. His interest-1 is to serve his employer well. Jerry is the ‘Aam Aadmi’ (they haven’t copywrited the term yet, have they?). Mr X conducts a study on a drug sold by his employer, to see if the drug really benefits the Aam Aadmi (interest-2). What would he do if he finds that the drug is useless? Of course, he would try and focus on the grain of positives within the puddle of factual negatives. Thought you should know, in case you didn’t, after reading through this article’s Conflicts of Interest and Acknowledgement sections. Incidentally, Ben Goldacre has just given an insight into the choice of slangs one should be prepared to be called by if habitually pointing out such trivia.
784 Predictors of mortality in veterans with traumatic spinal cord injury is not a study whose findings could be readily extrapolated to the general population. Yet, a few findings are worth noting. Infection still is the leading cause of death following SCI. Pneumonia, UTI, pressure ulcers are the three leading causes. Of late, non-communicable diseases are catching up. “Importantly, when effective prevention of SCI-related complications and better control of modifiable vascular risk factors such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus, obesity and smoking cessation were undertaken by us, between 2008 and 2011, the survival of tSCI patients improved from an average of 63% between 2000 and 2007 to 72%”. The lesson: SCI or no, quit smoking, stay active, and you’re likely to live longer.
Spinal Cord November 2013
823 There is a new cook in the already crowded Spinal Cord Regeneration kitchen. Broth is nowhere in sight. Glibenclamide reduces acute lesion expansion in a rat model of spinal cord injury, says the emphatic title of this study. Those who have been in business long enough know what to expect from this in immediate future in terms of actual patient care.
A remotely Forrest-Gump-esque series of events. I remember mentioning somewhere a few years ago about my new-found interests in golf, cycling and F1, courtesy the greats who were ruling at that time. While Tiger and Lance fell in different ways, figuratively, Michael literally did about a month ago. The box of chocolates.
Rehab Journal Review 