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Background and purpose: Despite the introduction of an effective vaccine more than 30 years ago, measles is a public health problem worldwide. This project was designed and conducted to determine the incidence and characteristics of measles cases in Mazandaran province.
Materials and methods : Reported measles cases to the health center for diseases control and prevention from March 2000 to March 2002 were reviewed . Demographic data, vaccination status and the relation in occurrence of the disease and serological confirmation of the reported cases were analyzed. Âge specific incidence rates calculated based on health center census data.
Results : Ïn this period, totally 729 cases (280 females), were reported. From ~ serologically tested cases, 135 were confirmed. Âge specific incidence rates were : 9.2% , 8.5% , 18.4% , 42.7% and 21.2% in each age group of < 1 , 1-4 , 5-9 , 10-19 and > 20 years , respectively . The annual incidence rates were : 7.1 , 11.9 and 12.7 for each 105 population . Âlso 46.5% of the cases occurred in full vaccinated subjects and 39.9% of the cases had not been vaccinated .
Çonclusion: Because of the high incidence rate of measles in unvaccinated 10-20 years old individuals, paying more attention to vaccination status of children at school entry ,increasing vaccine coverage especially for children in suburban areas, case survey, confirmation of reported cases by serological methods and catch-up immunization for increasing immunity are recommended.

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Background and purpose: Spirometry is a powerful method in assessment and management of many respiratory disorders. Technological improvement has made it a reliable, relatively simple and available method in clinical settings. Native spirometric standard values are necessary for the interpretation of pulmonary function test. In this study, important spirometric values (FVC,FEV1, FEV1/ FVC ,FEF25-75 ) of healthy adults > 18 years old in Sari city were compared with those of predicted standard equations to determine the nearest values.
Materials and Methods: Five hundred and seven healthy adults (245 males, 262 females) selected by random sampling, with no previous history of smoking and without chronic or acute respiratory problems were subjected to spirometry with calibrated Fukudo Sangyo spirometer. The methodological guidelines of the American Thorasic Society were observed to perform spirometry. The results were analyzed by SPSS, paired t- test and Pearson correlation.
Results: The results indicated that the mean values of males are more than those of females .The highest values are from the 20-30 years age group.The correlation coefficient of height with the measured values is very high (99% confidence interval) but for the weight is low. The nearest standard predicted values to the measured values were from Eccs.
Conclusion: According to the results and correlation coefficient test, measured values have the highest correlation with Eccs predicted values with 99% confidence interval and the Eccs standard seems to be the most proper standard for Sari community, more researches are recommended though.

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Background and purpose: The effect of action observation on symmetry of weight distribution and stability indices in semi-dynamic stability in healthy older people is not identified yet. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of action observation on the symmetry of weight distribution in lower limbs and stability indices in semi-dynamic stability among healthy non-athlete older people.

Materials and methods: An experimental study was performed in 72 healthy male and female volunteers aged 55 to 75 years old. The subjects were randomly divided into two groups of functional film observation and symbols. Demographic, clinical and laboratory information of the groups (lower extremity muscle strength, the vision, symmetry weight distribution, and dynamic stability indices) were collected and measured. Data was analyzed in SPSS V.16.

Results: Percentage of weight distribution showed no significant difference between the two groups. The comparison of changes between the two groups showed that observation of the film significantly improved total index (P =0.004), antero-posterior index (P =0.015), and medio-latral index (P =0.023) in stability of level 5. There was a significant improvement between the females of both groups in total, antero-posterior, and medio-latral balance index in stability of level 5 (P =0.001). The percentage changes of balance indices showed no significant differences among males.

Conclusion: The results showed that the action observation could have a positive effect on improvement of balance in healthy older people (especially in unstable levels). Significant improvement of stability indices in women after watching the film, may suggest greater sensitivity of women's mirror neurons.

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Background and purpose: Aging is associated with brain changes and reduction in motor skill acquisi­tion that can limit its functional capacity. One of the effective interventions is using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). The aim of this systematic review was to assess the effect of tDCS on learning and motor skill in healthy older adults.

Materials and methods: A literature search for the period of 1995-2016 was performed using PubMed, Google scholar, Science Direct, OVID, PEDro, Cochrane library, and CINAHL databases. Studies investigating the effect of tDCS in different regions of cortex on learning and motor skill parameters in healthy older adults were included. The PEDro quality scale was used to investigate the studies included.

Results: According to the inclusion criteria of the study, seven articles were selected from 97 relevant articles. There were considerable differences among the studies in terms of methodology, outcome measures, sample size, procedure, etc. The results indicated that using tDCS on primary motor cortex and cerebellum regions could significantly improve motor learning and motor skill in older adults. In addition, tDCS in prefrontal, parietal and temporoparietal regions had significant, strong and long-term effects on cognition and working memory in older adults.

Conclusion: It seems that administration of tDCS in different regions of brain as a boosting technique can enhance motor learning, motor skill, and working memory capacity in healthy older adults. This method can control aging learning deficits.

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Background and purpose: Aging is accompanied by a decline in quality of life. Horticulture is one of the activities that most elderly enjoy and can help preserve their physical and mental activity. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of horticultural therapy on the quality of life of elderly people attending daily care centers.
Materials and methods: A quasi-experimental study was carried out with pre-test and post-test design in two groups of intervention and control in 60 elderly people in Sari, Iran 2017. In the intervention group, horticultural treatments were held in groups for 6 weeks in 12 sessions of 30-45 minutes. Quality of life was assessed using Leipad quality of life questionnaire before and after the intervention. Data were analyzed in SPSS V20 applying descriptive and inferential statistics.
Results: The mean scores for quality of life in intervention group and controls before the horticultural therapy were 79.93±14.88 and 79.30±12.75 (P= 0.001) but after the intervention the scores were 86.03±11.87 and 80.36±12.54 (P= 0.001), respectively. In fact, horticultural therapy was found to significantly improve quality of life in intervention group (P = 0.001).
Conclusion: The intervention was effective in improving the overall quality of life of the elderly studied. Therefore, it could be introduced as an easy, non-invasive, delightful, and helpful method.
 

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Background and purpose: Depression is one of the significant and common disorders in the elderly. Considering that nutrition plays a crucial role not only in the onset but also in the severity and duration of the depressive episode, the aim of the present study is to investigate the relationship between the Healthy Eating Index (HEI) as an alternative indicator of healthy eating and the dietary quality score with depression in the elderly residents of Shiraz.
Materials and methods: In this cross-sectional study on 80 older adults living in Shiraz, information regarding people's dietary intake was gathered with a 147-item food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Adherence to healthy eating patterns was assessed using HEI. Diet quality was assessed by DQI-I, which includes four main components of the diet. For evaluating depression, the Beck Depression test was used. The association between food indices and depression was assessed by linear regression in two crude and adjusted models.
Results: Of the 80 people studied, 50% were women. The mean and standard deviation of the age of the studied subjects were 66.18±5.67 and 65.18±6.9 years, respectively. The relationship between the diet quality index and depression score showed an inverse and significant relationship, so an increase in the diet quality index was associated with a decrease in depression score (beta coefficient: -0.281 and P=0.036). This index remained significant after adjusting for age, gender, level of education, body mass index, and energy (P= 0.049).
Conclusion: The findings of the current study revealed that Adhering to a diet with higher DQI-I had an inverse association with the risk of depression in the elderly. Further research is needed, especially prospective studies, to confirm these findings in Middle Eastern societies.
 

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Background and purpose: Considering the progress made in the field of diagnosis and treatment of heart diseases, one of the heart diseases that has a high prevalence today is congenital heart disease. These people have their own special needs because they are getting older with medical treatments. Various studies have shown that at least 50% of patients with heart disease do not take the treatment recommendations made by the treatment staff seriously and do not follow them, which can cause complications or re-hospitalization. One of the important things to prevent this problem is to raise awareness and meet the information needs of patients about possible complications. Hence, the purpose of this study is to identify and categorize the information needs of adults suffering from one of the types of congenital heart disease.
Materials and methods: This study was conducted with nineteen patients with congenital heart disease in the first six months of 2023, using conventional qualitative content analysis (Granheim method). The participants were selected from the referrals to the specialized clinic of congenital heart diseases of Kerman University of Medical Sciences. In the interview sessions, the interviewer explained about the audio recording and obtained permission to conduct the interview. Each interview was implemented verbatim after the end. The main codes were extracted by carefully reading the text of the interviews and the necessary categories were made. Lincoln and Goba's four criteria including acceptability, transferability, reliability, and confirmability were used to ensure the robustness of qualitative data. To analyze the data, the conventional content analysis approach with Granheim and Lundman's approach was used. For this purpose, the following steps were
taken to analyze the data: a. Implementation. 2. Study the general text. 3. Extraction of primary codes. 4. Identification of subclasses. 5. Identify the hidden content in the data.
Results: Nineteen patients were interviewed in this study. The age range of the patients was between 18 and 48 years, and ten of the study participants were female and nine were male. Analysis of the content of the interviews led to the identification of 3 main topics including information needs related to the disease, information needs to be related to personal life, and information needs to be related to social life, and 14 sub-topics including how to control the symptoms of the disease, when to see a doctor, drug interactions, and necessary measures for dentistry, performing non-cardiac surgeries, type of diet, smoking and drug use, driving, using beauty services such as body tattoos, finding a suitable job, getting married and having children and the possibility of transmitting the disease to children, marital relationship, participating in competitions, sports and contraceptive methods were done.
Conclusion: Considering the increase in the number of adult patients with congenital heart disease on the one hand and the awareness of important information needs, it is necessary to know the different needs of these patients to better provide different sources of access to this information to the patients.

 

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Background and Purpose: Diabetes Mellitus is a group of complex, multi-system metabolic disorders that alter many functions of the immune system and are associated with delayed recovery and a reduced immune response. Apical periodontitis is the inflammation and destruction of the periodontium in the apical region of the root, originating from the pulp, and as a result, an inflammatory response creates a radiolucent area at the root apex. In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between the presence of pulp and periapical lesions and controlled type 2 diabetes in the radiographic images of patients.
Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 45 patients were included in the case group (patients with controlled diabetes) and 45 in the control group (healthy individuals). Periapical and endodontic status was evaluated based on examinations using panoramic and periapical images. In the dental examinations (excluding third molars), the following were recorded for each patient: the number of teeth in the mouth, the number and location of teeth without root canal treatment with a periapical lesion, the number and location of teeth with root canal treatment, and the number and location of teeth with root canal treatment with a periapical lesion. The periodontal condition was assessed using the periapical index (PAI), with scores greater than 3 considered indicative of periapical pathology. For inferential analysis, chi-square tests and independent t-tests were used.
Results: Among the 90 participants, 53 were women and 37 were men. The average age of the participants was 43.6 years, and the average age was higher in the diabetic group. In total, 52.2% of patients had periapical lesions and 63.3% had pulpal lesions, with these two lesions being significantly more common in diabetic individuals(P<0.05). Among all patients, there was a significant relationship between gender and periapical lesions (P=0.022), with women having a higher prevalence of these lesions. In non-diabetic individuals, unlike diabetic individuals, the relationship between gender and periapical lesions was significant, with women having more lesions(P=0.03). Across all patients, there was a significant relationship between age and periapical lesions (P=0.001), with the average age being higher in patients with periapical lesions. In diabetic individuals, unlike non-diabetic individuals, no significant relationship was observed between these two variables (P=0.828).
Conclusion: The study results demonstrated a significant relationship between the prevalence of pulp and periapical lesions and factors such as sex, age, and type 2 diabetes. The findings revealed that the prevalence of pulp and periapical lesions is higher in patients with type 2 diabetes compared to those without diabetes. The likelihood of developing these lesions increases with age and is generally higher in women. Additionally, no correlation was found between the prevalence of pulp and periapical lesions in men without type 2 diabetes and increasing age in individuals with type 2 diabetes.