Lifestyle modification for mental health and well-being.

Background: Unhealthy life-style leads to mental ill-health and poor quality of life and is the major determinant of a wide range of lifestyle disorders. The aim was to 1) review the work relating to life style modification for promoting mental health and 2) Present recommendations on life-style modification for mental health and wellbeing. Material and Methods: The work on life style changes for promotion of mental health was retrieved from the scientific literature and critically reviewed. Conclusions: Recommendations on 'Life-style modification for mental health and wellbeing' are presented. 20 specific components of healthy life style included are: Routine, time management, prayer, basic activities, reading newspaper, study/work, exercise, recreation/ relaxation/ talent promotion, education, cognitive activities, social networking, guidelines for behavior, peer group, social group, marriage/family, life skills, physical health, health education, mobile use, and digital media. The lifestyle modification package is comprehensive and geared to promote mental health and well-being.

Depression with Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy.

Depression and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) both are chronic illness of different etiopathology and are usually not looked for together while screening a patient. However, both have got a long incubation period as well as have an overlapping symptom profile. Rarely, cases reported in literature talk both together. Here, we report a rare case with depression complicated by CIDP managed together to improve outcome of depression.

Impact of differences in psychiatry curriculum of undergraduate medical and physiotherapy students on their attitude towards psychiatry.

BACKGROUND: Negative attitude toward psychiatry (ATP) among medical students is a serious concern. Some studies have concluded that after training in the subject, attitude changes toward positive side. Currently in India, medical students have a less intense course without separate exam or binding to attend training whereas physiotherapy students have more intense course with separate subject exam and binding to attend training in psychiatry. OBJECTIVE: To ascertain and compare the positive and negative ATP in final year MBBS students and final year physiotherapy (BPTh) students who have completed psychiatry curriculum. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study with semi-structured pro forma for sociodemographic variables and ATP-30 questionnaire to evaluate ATP of 94 medical and physiotherapy students each. Nonparametric methods were used for statistical analysis with appropriate tests of significance and P value was set at 0.05. RESULTS: Mean ATP-30 score for medical students was 91.9 (standard deviation [SD] =7.0) and that of physiotherapy students was 105.8 (SD = 9.7), this difference in two groups was highly significant (Kruskal-Wallis H = 81.3, df = 1, P < 0.001). Of all medical students, 36 (41.4%) had negative attitude while only 2 (2.1%) of the physiotherapy students had negative ATP (χ(2) = 41.7, P < 0.001). Boys were 2.6 times more likely to have negative ATP than girls (relative risk = 2.6, P = 0.005). CONCLUSIONS: Physiotherapy students with intense and planned training in psychiatry as an exam subject have significantly more positive ATP than medical students.

Songs induced mood recognition system using EEG signals.

BACKGROUND: Brain computer interfacing is a system that acquires and analyzes neural signals to create a communication channel directly between the brain and the computer. The EEG records the electrical fields generated by the nerve cells. With the help of Fourier Transformation the EEG signals are classified into four different frequency bands. PURPOSE: The main purpose of the present paper is to report results related to classification of EEG signals of different people subjected to different conditions. METHODS: The experiment has been done on 10 subjects having activities related to hearing music chosen from categories of patriotic, happy, romantic and sad songs along with relaxation activity. 19 electrodes have been used under (10-20) International Standard. The δ, θ α and ß components of EEG signals to these activities have been determined. Different statistical methods including linear discriminate analysis have been tested for classification. RESULTS: Result of the Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) made four groups of all modes (Relaxation, Happy, Sad, Patriotic and Romantic Song) labeled group1, Group2, Group3 and Group4 of all ten electrodes for Delta, Theta, alpha and Beta frequencies. CONCLUSION: The study may be used for the development of activities induced mood recognition (AIMR) system from the EEG signal.