The quality of life for women after menopause is one of the key health issues today, and osteoporosis is a silently progressing metabolic bone disease widely prevalent in post-menopausal women in India. Rapid bone loss occurs in post-menopausal women due to hormonal factors that lead to an increased risk of fractures. Thus, the present study was undertaken to observe the serum calcium and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) levels in post-menopausal women as these substances are biochemical markers of bone metabolism. In this small-scale cross-sectional study, 100 samples were taken. Of these, 50 were taken from post-menopausal women (experimental group) and 50 were taken from pre-menopausal women (control group). Serum calcium and serum ALP were measured in the blood samples of both groups. The findings demonstrated that the serum calcium level was significantly lower in the post-menopausal group than in the pre-menopausal group, while the ALP level was slightly higher. Therefore, an increase in bone turnover accelerates bone mass reduction in post-menopausal women, whereas a decrease in bone turnover is associated with the preservation of bone mass.
Alkaline Phosphatase ; Postmenopause ; Calcium ; Osteoporosis ; Women

Epilepsy is one of the most important neurological diseases with prolonged morbidity and disability leading to profound fi nancial loss. There have not been many studies investigating factors infl uencing the quality of life in an epilepsy patient in India. This study was conducted among the epilepsy patients attending a tertiary care hospital in West Bengal, India. Two hundred and four epilepsy patients attending the Outpatient Clinic of the Department of Neuromedicine, Medical College, Kolkata were interviewed with the Bengali version of QOLIE 9 (i.e. Quality of life in Epilepsy 9 questionnaire). The mean of total QOLIE score was 18.02 ± 4.87, the range being 10 to 30. Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that workdays lost due to epilepsy in last three months, use of two or more antiepileptic drugs, higher frequency of seizure, and longer time gap between onset of seizure and consultation with neurologist were signifi cant predictors for poorer quality of life score in the epilepsy patient.