dr. minoo habibi

Chatharsis is a Greek term, derived from the root of the word: Chatharos which means: pure. This term, semantically is related to two concepts: purity and integrity. Plato in Sophist, divided cleaning art into two items: 1) cleaning as separating similar from similar. 2) cleaning as separating good from bad. He called the second one, as the cleaning Psyche from its flaws; and presented his Catharsis in this context. In Plato’s thought, philosophy or in exact terms, the practice of philosophy through an argumentation reasonably, is Catharsis.

There is an increase in the worldwide prevalence, morbidity and mortality of asthma. Therefore, study of the possible factors related to the burden of this disorder could help the health providers to introduce effective initiatives and reduce adverse consequences due to this condition. This study was designed to investigate any relationship between asthma morbidity with inhaler technique and other probable explanatory factors in asthmatic patients. An observational, cross-sectional study was designed in which asthmatic patients referring to the outpatient respiratory clinic of the Shaheed Labbafinezhad hospital were entered the study using a non-probability sampling method. Their demographic, socio-economic, medical and medication history, inhaler technique (using a 10-step check list), as well as short-term morbidity index (in the past 4 weeks using the Jone''s morbidity questionnaire) were determined and recorded in organized data collection forms. These data were entered the Excel and SPSS (version 17. 0) worksheets and analyzed using appropriate statistical tests. A step-by-step analysis method was used in order to find out any relationship between possible explanatory factors and the morbidity index of the patients. 199 adult asthmatic patients (94 male and 105 female) with mean ± SD age of 54. 29 ± 15. 52 years enrolled the study. In the first step of data analysis only 5 factors out of 20 explanatory factors were eligible to be included in the multivariate analysis leading to the final predictive model. In the multivariate regression analysis, 2 out of 5 factors could remain in the final model, which were «history of systemic steroid usage» and «age» (p=0. 007, r=0. 32). So that, patients with a positive history of systemic steroid use and those with a younger age had higher asthma morbidity rate. The observed positive relationship between history of systemic steroid usage and asthma morbidity remarks the importance of asthma control in the primary care level and highlights its role on patient''s quality of life. Possible reasons leading to a higher morbidity rate in younger asthmatic patients should be evaluated in the future studies.

There is an increasing of prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD). A lot of researches have shown the relation between periodontal and some kinds of systemic disease. To determine the relation between periodontal disease and COPD this research was performed on patients in Labafinejad hospital and their match control group at 2001-2002. Method & Material: In this case-control study, test group consisted of patients with diagnosed COPD and control group was selected same as test group except for having COPD. Periodontal examination was done which was included: Pocket Depth measurement (PD), Bleeding on Probing (BoP), Probing Attachment Loss (PAL) and plaque index (Loe and Silness). By use of statistical analysis, the above measurements were interpreted. This study was done on 130 attendants totally, 65 persons in each group. The group (case and control) were matched based on age, gender, smoking, socio-economic condition. In the control group, 9.2% and in the test group 29.2.% had PD>3mm (P<0.05) that means COPD patients were 3.4 times more at risk of PD>3mm. In the control and test group, BOP were 49.5 ± 11.7 and 63.5 ± 15.2 (P<0.0001) respectively and COPD patients are 1.8 times more at risk of gingival bleeding in comparison to the control group. PAL>2mm in the control and test group were 61.5% and 80% respectively (P<0.02) that means in COPD patients there is 2.5 times more risk to have PAL>2mm than the control group. Moderate and advanced PI in the control and test group were 24.6% and 44.6% (P<0.02) respectively which shows COPD patients are 2.47 times more at risk of moderate and advance PI. There is a direct relation between periodontal disease and COPD. We recommend an experimental study to show the efficacy of periodontal treatment on progression and prognosis of COPD.