Suja Abraham

Publications (2) View all

• Article: Assessment of quality of life in patients on hemodialysis and the impact of counseling.

  Suja Abraham, Anju Venu, Anju Ramachandran, Praseetha Mundapurath Chandran, Saraswathi Raman
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  ABSTRACT: Chronic renal failure is an irreversible progressive condition responsible for high morbidity and mortality. Because it requires life-long treatment in the form of renal replacement therapy, the quality of life (QOL) of patients may significantly impair. Studies have revealed that patient education can play a significant role in improving the QOL in these patients. The primary objective of this study was to assess the QOL of patients on hemodialysis by using the World Health Organization Quality of Life assessment scale and also to study the impact of patient counseling in these patients. Fifty patients were selected for the study and they were randomly divided into two groups, control and test; counseling was given to the test group of patients. There was an increase in score in all the four domains (physical, psychological, environmental and social) among the test group when compared with the control group. Also, we found that the psychological domain showed significant increase in score compared with others. Our findings demonstrate that patient counseling plays an important role in improving the QOL by changing their psychological thinking and bringing them toward spirituality.
  Saudi journal of kidney diseases and transplantation: an official publication of the Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation, Saudi Arabia 09/2012; 23(5):953-7.
• Article: Effect of Ampicillin Sodium on Immune Response

  Lima Trisa Baby, Joseph V Kavalakkat, Suja Abraham, S. Sathyanarayanan
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  ABSTRACT: Penicillins are B-lactam antibiotics widely used in clinical practice and they induce many allergic reactions, which can beeither cellular or humoral. B-lactams are able to interact covalently with serum proteins, forming immunogenic conjugatesand their metabolism can provoke a number of different antigenic determinants that have been implicated in the specificityof the immunological response. In the present study, Ampicillin Sodium (17.5mg/kg), a semi-synthetic amino penicillin wasused to study its effect on immune response by measuring different immune parameters like total serum protein concentration,passive haemagglutination, total leucocyte and total lymphocyte count. The antigen used was sheep RBC. It wasobserved that there was no significant change in total serum protein content and antibody titre. Ampicillin caused a slightincrease in total leukocyte count and slight decrease in total lymphocyte count. It can be concluded that Ampicillin doesnot adversely affect the specific immune response in normal rabbits
  Journal of Pharmacy Research. 01/2009;