A wrist side story
Carpal Tunnel is the name given to the passage located between the forearm and the palm, states a recent issue of the Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association. On the sides of the tunnel are two small bones and it is traversed by the median nerve and tendons of the flexor muscles of the palm. When the median nerve is compressed within the carpal tunnel, it causes pain and is called Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
This compression can be due to narrowing of the space or thickening of the nerve. Diagnosis is made by history and certain provocative tests. Majority of the patients are middle-aged with a preponderance of females and involvement of the dominant hand. The common presenting symptoms are weakness of the hand with sensory disturbances. Symptoms are aggravated during sleep and if not promptly treated, they progress and hand muscles get wasted.
The exact cause of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is not known. It is considered a cumulative trauma disorder and is work related. Some cases are due to rheumatoid arthritis, injury, pregnancy, tuberculosis or tumours. Tuberculous tenosynovitis is the infection of the tendond by tuberculosis bacteria. In these cases, antituberculous therapy has to be given along with surgery.
A study on 53 patients with a median age of 43 years and duration of symptoms for nine months showed tenosynovitis in three patients. The tests done gave a diagnosis of tuberculosis. Four drugs antituberculous therapy showed improvement.
Tuberculous tenosynovitis should be kept in mind as a cause of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, especially if the patient is young and has a swelling over the wrist with a shifting crepitus. Histopathology confirms the diagnosis. — Dr Fatema Jawad
Rediscovering childhood
A three-day international symposium on Rediscovering Childhood, organized by Sindh Education Foundation with the funding of the Aga Khan Foundation and USAID, was held last week in Karachi.
The main focus of the symposium was to stress the need for a happier and healthier world for children. The themes under discussion were social institution and childhood; media, technology and childhood; development and its challenges to childhood; and shaping of childhood in the age of globalization.
The symposium was well attended by academic professionals, government officials, parents, donors, members of different organizations and the media. Over the three-day duration of the symposium, there were a good number of speakers who focused on different themes related to issues faced by children today. They also gave very helpful and meaningful suggestions and tips on how to make this a better world for them and how a happy childhood and be assured.
In her opening address Professor Anita Ghulam Ali, the leading force behind the symposium, said that children today were being harmed and robbed of their childhood by the changing social, academic, cultural, economical agendas and forces.
The symposium aimed to challenge the assumption that children’s success, be it in school or anywhere else, is a goal in itself, rather than a by-product of children who are happy, well-loved and allowed to develop at their own pace. Children today are under tremendous stress and suffer increasingly from illnesses and hyperactivity disorder. There is a need to remove this stress so that they can grow into healthier and happier adults. It was pointed out that childhood is a critical phase in life and must be protected to be fully experienced. It should not be hurried.
Among other things, the effects of developing media and technologies on children were also focused on. It was noted that the effect of media, particularly television, is tremendous and usually negative on children who are very vulnerable and impressionable.
Energy police
Beijing is setting up an “energy police” force to crack down on excessive lighting and heating and other power waste in shopping malls and office buildings, the China Daily said recently.
The 20 energy-efficiency supervisors would be the front line in the capital’s campaign to curb power use, echoing a national drive to improve energy efficiency to curb pollution and dependence on imported oil as the economy grows. “We have been advocating energy saving for years but it has remained only a slogan because of a lack of a supervising system,” Beijing vice mayor Zhang Hao was quoted as saying. The “energy police”, as Zhang called them, would be authorized to fine owners of buildings that used too much power, adding teeth to city orders to improve energy efficiency that carried no penalties, the newspaper said. China has struggled to generate enough power to keep up with its breakneck economic growth, about nine percent annually, and has faced severe energy crunches the past two summers.
China consumes over four times more energy to generate a unit of GDP than the average Group of Seven developed country, according to the Asian Development Bank. — Samina Iqbal n
