Anaemia of chronic disease (ACD) is caused due to an underlying chronic inflammatory process. It is not due to marrow deficiency of iron. Chronic periodontitis is a chronic inflammatory condition which has been associated with anaemia of chronic disease. The aim of this study is to estimate various hematologic parameters suggestive of ACD in patients with chronic periodontitis and in the process to establish a relation between the two. Forty patients were selected and were categorized, based on the presence and absence of chronic periodontitis, into case and control groups, with 20 subjects in each group. Hematologic evaluation was done. Complete haemogram, haematocrit, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and estimation of serum ferritin were done. An independent t-test was calculated. Statistically significant values (p<0.05) were obtained for neutrophil count, ESR, red blood cells (RBC), mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration (MCHC) and serum ferritin. ESR, RBC and serum ferritin levels were significantly increased in subjects with chronic periodontitis. There were significant differences in neutrophil, ESR, RBC and serum ferritin in subjects having severe form of generalized chronic periodontitis. Thus, it was concluded that chronic generalized periodontitis, by means of an inflammatory process, influences various hematologic parameters are suggestive of anaemia of chronic disease.
Chronic Periodontitis ; Periodontitis

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is an upcoming treatment modality for patients with schizophrenia. A series of recent observations have demonstrated improvement in clinical status of schizophrenia patients with tDCS. This review summarizes the research work that has examined the effects of tDCS in schizophrenia patients with respect to symptom amelioration, cognitive enhancement and neuroplasticity evaluation. tDCS is emerging as a safe, rapid and effective treatment for various aspects of schizophrenia symptoms ranging from auditory hallucinations-for which the effect is most marked, to negative symptoms and cognitive symptoms as well. An interesting line of investigation involves using tDCS for altering and examining neuroplasticity in patients and healthy subjects and is likely to lead to new insights into the neurological aberrations and pathophysiology of schizophrenia. The mechanistic aspects of the technique are discussed in brief. Future work should focus on establishing the clinical efficacy of this novel technique and on evaluating this modality as an adjunct to cognitive enhancement protocols. Understanding the mechanism of action of tDCS as well as the determinants and neurobiological correlates of clinical response to tDCS remains an important goal, which will help us expand the clinical applications of tDCS for the treatment of patients with schizophrenia.
Hallucinations ; Humans ; Neurobehavioral Manifestations ; Neuronal Plasticity ; Schizophrenia*