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Biomedical subjects

E Messer

Publications and source records attributed to E Messer.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

[Standardized computer-based documentation system for diagnoses and medical performance in orthopedics and traumatology. Development and initial application].

INTRODUCTION: Increasing demands on quality assurance und medical performance documentation require an immediate and evaluable documentation in the outpatients' department. Presentation of a new computer-based diagnostic system for reporting and medical performance documentation. METHODS: Development and initial application of the system in three big orthopedical or traumatological hospitals. Judgements about the feasibility of immediate documentation in outpatients' departments. RESULTS: Presentation of an outpatients' departments diagnostic system with textblock-oriented anamnesis or anatomy-related diagnosis through pre-structured examination checklists. Coding of ICD-9/-10 as well as AO-classification and AIS (abbreviated injury scale). Implementation of scorings. Medical performance documentation through forms including pre-defined billing codes. Presentation of the documentation flow and its transfer into other contexts. DISCUSSION: Pure text-based clinical results do not allow sufficient evaluation for quality assurance and medical performance documentation. However, a computer-based and immediate documentation in outpatients' departments should not mean a significantly increased workload for physicians.

Documentation↗
PubMed1997

Intra-household allocation of food and health care: current findings and understandings--introduction.

This work offers an anthropological analysis of intra-household processes underlying gender- and age-specific differences in individual nutritional and health care allocations and outcomes in particular cultures. Based on recent ethnographic studies in India, Nepal, Madagascar, Mexico, and Peru, correspondences are analyzed between local cultural ("emic") and scientist-policy maker practitioner ("etic") understandings of nutrition, health, and human development, and the relative "values" of females, males, and children of different ages. The data and analyses clarify specific epidemiological and demographic findings on age and gender bias in nutrition and health and highlight the multiple cultural, economic, and biological factors that contribute to gender- or age-based discrimination or neglect. Recent advances in nutrition policy have argued for a broader concept of nutritional security, one that incorporates both food quantity and quality, and of nutrition as "food, health and care" (International Conference on Nutrition, World Declaration and Plan of Action for Nutrition, FAO/WHO, Rome, 1992). These ethnographic findings; lend strong support for such broader nutrition concepts and associated nutrition policies. The studies also suggest ways in which anthropological questions, methods, and data and community-based research can help predict or identify the nutritionally vulnerable within households and help other social and medical scientists design more effective interventions.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1994

Measurement of ulnar translation and carpal height.

Ulnar translation, carpal height and carpal collapse are methods of measurement described by Youm, by Chamay and by DiBenedetto. The accuracy of these methods has been statistically examined using 65 normal X-rays. The lines of measurement were correlated with each other and more lines were sought to demonstrate better correlation. The validity of these methods was tested on 40 X-ray films from rheumatoid patients. The greater accuracy of the recommended lines of measurement was confirmed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Indian nutritionists and international nutritional standards: concepts and controversies.

This paper explores how Indian nutritional scientists and policy planners have influenced the formulation and interpretation of standards of nutritional status. It draws on diverse published evidence by Indian scientists on three controversial issues: (1) the validity and applicability of international nutritional standards to India; (2) the so-called protein gap; and (3) the 'small but healthy' hypothesis. The paper concludes that Indian scientists have had considerable influence in international nutrition and food policy debates. Moreover, their positions seem to have been motivated more by nationalistic and scientific, rather than Indian ethnomedical cultural concerns. The paper provides one example of how Third World scientists and science have influenced a major area of scientific policy debate. The roles of cultural and political-economic factors in the construction of national and international nutritional standards are highlighted.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

The hot and cold in Mesoamerican indigenous and hispanicized thought.

While the influence of Hispanic humoral medicine on 16th century and subsequent Mesoamerican indigenous thought is undeniable, recent reexaminations of Aztec, Mayan and Zapotec medicinal and cosmological systems suggest indigenous roots in hot-cold concepts. This paper reviews and compares the growing evidence for independent hot-cold classifications in Mesoamerica, and suggests certain common lines of syncretism in structure, content and applications. Drawing on a model from cognitive psychology previously applied by the author to hot-cold data of the Mitla Zapotec, the paper explores its utility for cross-cultural comparison of hot-cold category development.

Cognition↗
PubMed1983

Walking cane designed to assist partial weight bearing.

The device described indicates accurately the amount of weight borne on an affected leg. This device consists of two major elements: a weight measuring system incorporated in the walking cane's body, and a feedback mechanism situated in the cane's handle. By means of vibration or lights the patient and the therapist can determine whether or not the affected leg is bearing the prescribed weight. Thirty patients (10 with fractures, 10 with vascular disorders, and 10 below-knee amputees) and 10 healthy people participated in the study. The study concluded that young patients used the feedback information more readily than older patients. The intention in designing such a device is to help orthopedically disabled patients during their convalescence, to minimize strain on ischemic legs, and to assist amputees in monitoring weight-bearing postoperative walking.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Systematic and medicinal reasoning in Mitla folk botany.

This paper reviews cognitive, symbolic, systematic botanical, and biochemical bases of plant classification, and analyzes their interrelationships in the medicinal folk botany of Mitla, Oaxaca, Mexico. It evaluates the "pharmacological wisdom" of the local population, along with their symbolic use of the environment, to show how they construct medicinal plant classifications which follow a folk logic, but often conform as well to modern botanical classifications based on the principles of systematic botany or chemistry. Working from both the chemical data and the folk categories, the analysis suggests the local Zapotec population systematically selected plants which foam for symbolic reasons to treat illnesses of the "soul" and identifies their underlying chemical constituents and medicinal qualities. Other correspondences between chemical, medicinal and reputed folk qualities are also suggested.

Animals↗