muscular dystrophies are inherited disorders that cause progressive muscle weakness (myopathy) and atrophy (loss of muscle mass) due to defects in one or more genes required for normal muscle function. some of the genes responsible for these conditions have been identified .there are a number of different types of muscular dystrophy. the primary symptom for most types is muscle weakness, althou...

BACKGROUND Although screening for congenital heart malformations is part of the child health care programme in several countries, there are very few published evaluations of these activities. This report is concerned with the evaluation of this screening at the Dutch Child Health Centres (CHC). METHODS All consecutive patients, aged between 32 days and 4 years, presented at the Sophia Childre...

Birth defects aff ect 6% of all children in India, which translates to a staggering 1·7 million birth defects annually. Developmental delays are also a substantial cause of morbidity in early childhood, aff ecting around 10% of children. That’s why many experts have welcomed a new government initiative to screen children for birth defects and intervene early, although concerns have been raised ...

AIM Anxiety may influence dental treatment unfavourably, thus evaluation of the psychophysiological reactions of the child may reduce its negative effects. This study aimed to evaluate and correlate the levels of cortisol and alpha-amylase, vital signs and behaviour of children during their first dental visit. METHODS Study sample consisted of 32 children (11 male and 21 female patients) aged...

Over a two-year period, 3479 pregnant women in the Kings' Lynn Health District were screened for neural tube defects by estimation of maternal serum alpha-fetoprotein. Most pregnancies were scanned by sonar for fetal maturity. Eight women had fetuses with open neural tube defects; four with anencephaly were associated with very high alpha-fetoprotein values. Of the four with open neural tube de...