Introduction: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the major global issues as it causes a serious health threatening condition for the injured persons, increased mortality rates, increased physical and cognitive impairment, as well as affecting the health care systems. Method: The aim of this study was to predict the association between the pre-injury socio-demographic, injury-related factors and cognitive impairments in post-TBI patients. Self-administered questionnaires were used for descriptive correlational study. Three instruments used included (1) pre-injury sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender, race, religion, education level, occupation) (2) injury-related factor characteristics (location of brain injury and GCS) and (3) Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) questionnaire to estimate cognitive impairment. Result: In this study, forty patients were recruited through purposive sampling from surgical based wards and 60.0% of TBI patients had cognitive impairments. This study found an association between injury factors (severity of TBI from GCS result) with cognitive impairment post-TBI among patients. However, there is no association between socio-demographic characteristics (age, gender, race, religion, education level, occupation) and cognitive impairment. Conclusions The study provided a better understanding on the association between pre-injury socio-demographic characteristics, injury related characteristics of the severity of TBI and cognitive impairments in post-TBI patients during hospitalisation. The results of this study can potentially be used as baseline information to improve the care and treatment needs of patients with cognitive impairment post-TBI during hospitalisation in relation to enhanced quality of life.
Brain Injuries, Traumatic

Aims: Andrographis paniculata (AP), a medicinal herb was selected to investigate the antifungal activity on selected dermatophyte fungi. The phytochemical screening was also carried out to evaluate its chemical constituents. Methodology and results: The potato dextrose agar (PDA) incorporated with aqueous, ethanol and methanol AP extracts at concentrations 0.99% (v/v), 1.96% (v/v) and 7.41% (v/v) were used for selected fungi culturing; Trichophyton mentagrophytes, T. rubrum, T. interdigitale, Microsporum fulvum, M. nanum, M. gypseum, M. canis, Fusarium solani and Aspergillus fumigatus. Phytochemical screening showed the presence of flavonoids, saponins and tannins in the ethanol extract and flavonoids alone in both aqueous and methanol extracts. Studies on antifungal effects indicated that the ethanol extract significantly increased the mycelial inhibition percentage of all tested fungi, especially at a concentration of 7.41% (v/v). All ethanol AP extract concentrations inhibited M. gypseum and M. canis (p<0.05) with at least 36.00% mycelial inhibition. In aqueous AP extract, it significantly increased the mycelial inhibition of T. mentagrophytes, T. interdigitale and M. gypseum (p<0.05), while the methanol AP extract significantly inhibited all fungi at a concentration of 7.41% (v/v) except for T. rubrum, M. gypseum and F. solani (p<0.05). No spore sedimentation was recorded for the fungal spores of T. rubrum, M. nanum, T. mentagrophytes, M. gypseum and T. interdigitale at 7.41% (v/v) ethanol AP. Conclusion, significance and impact of study It is concluded that the ethanol AP extract contained phytochemical constituents and showed the highest antifungal activity. In addition, this extract has a great potential to treat dermatophytes effectively.
Antifungal Agents ; Phytochemicals ; Andrographis paniculata ; Dermatomycoses