Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation and primary dysmenorrhea: a case report

Primary dysmenorrhea is pelvic pain during the menstrual cycle. The A delta and C fibers aresensitized by the increased release of prostaglandins and leukotrienes, thus causing pain. TransElectric Nerve Stimulation (TENS) is a physiotherapeutic strategy that mitigatespain sensation. Objective: The aim of this paper is to present six cases of women in childbearingage who were diagnosed with primary dysmenorrhea and received transcutaneous electricnerve stimulation. Materials and methods: A type of study, case report, was conducted with sixwomen between 15 and 25 years of age with medical diagnosis of primary dysmenorrhea. Weassessed pain intensity utilizing the visual analogue pain scale and located the pain by usinga pain test map. Results: Pain intensity decreased in all treated women. Conclusion: Transcutaneouselectric nerve stimulation (TENS) is a physiotherapeutic strategy that mitigates painsensation. We conclude that high frequency TENSis a safe noninvasive modality to achievereduction of pain in primary dysmenorrhea.

Pre-school contributions to future achievements

This paper provides recent evidence about the beneÖts of attending preschool on future performance. A non-parametric matching procedure is used over two outcomes: math and verbal scores at a national mandatory test (Saber11) in Colombia. It is found that students who had the chance of attending preschool obtain higher scores in math (6.7%) and verbal (5.4%) than those who did not. A considerable fraction of these gaps comes from the upper quintiles of studentís performance, suggesting that preschool matters when is done at high quality institutions. When we include the number of years at the preschool, the gap rises up to 12% in verbal and 17% in math.

LMS tables for waist circumference and waist-to-height ratio among Colombian children and adolescents: The FUPRECOL study

Background: Indices predictive of central obesity include waist circumference (WC) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR). The aims of this study were 1) to establish a Colombian youth smoothed centile charts and LMS tables for WC and WHtR and 2) to evaluate the utility of these parameters as predictors of overweight and obesity. Method: A cross-sectional study whose sample population comprised 7954 healthy Colombian schoolchildren [boys n=3460 and girls n=4494, mean (standard deviation) age 12.8 (2.3) years old]. Weight, height, body mass index (BMI), WC and WHtR and its percentiles were calculated. Appropriate cut-offs point of WC and WHtR for overweight and obesity, as defined by the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) definitions, were selected using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. The discriminating power of WC and WHtR was expressed as area under the curve (AUC). Results: Reference values for WC and WHtR are presented. Mean WC increased and WHtR decreased with age for both genders. We found a moderate positive correlation between WC and BMI (r= 0.756, P < 0.01) and WHtR and BMI (r= 0.604, P < 0.01). The ROC analysis showed a high discrimination power in the identification of overweight and obesity for both measures in our sample population. Overall, WHtR was slightly a better predictor for overweight/obesity (AUC 95% CI 0.868-0.916) than the WC (AUC 95% CI 0.862-0.904). Conclusion: This paper presents the first sex- and age-specific WC and WHtR percentiles for both measures among Colombian children and adolescents aged 9–17.9 years. By providing LMS tables for Latin-American people based on Colombian reference data, we hope to provide quantitative tools for the study of obesity and its comorbidities.