Santhosh's ramblings

Santhosh's ramblings: Losing consciousnesses.... : Confusion is a lack of clarity in thinking with inattentiveness; delirium is used to describe as acute confusional state; stupor a state i...

Confusion is a lack of clarity in thinking with inattentiveness; delirium is used to describe as acute confusional state; stupor a state in which vigorous stimuli are needed to elicit a response; coma a condition of un-responsiveness….. Some interesting definitions from the “Forgotten art of Medicine”….But are these terms only relevant for the body only, What about institutions, organizations,. Industries, churches, and even families…. Confusion can come up over a period of time, due to long standing deranged internal functions which should have been clarified and sorted out earlier, many a times out of a “lack of discipline. Hepatic encephalopathy is an excellent example – years of “Alcohol intake and destruction of Hepatic cells” leads to a slow build up of “NH4/3” products and other “confusion creating chemicals” and one slowly moves into a confusional stage. Many a times precipitated by sudden crises…. Delirium is an acute onset of a confusional state – though thought...

We students of science and our educational system has led us to reason that, if B causes A, (the so called normal which we have decided as the “acceptable normal”) to be “damaged” or “affected”, and if C is the antidote for B all you need is to deploy C,  and the system will fall back to a normal A. We also tend to believe, the A we see as normal is the normal – anything different is “Abnormal”…and is to be facilitated back to “normal” or to be “tolerated”, if we cannot facilitate back the same… We also tend to work with the notion that, the change should be within “x” number of time span and that if that does not happen, something has failed and has gone wrong…and we re-start the process of identifying D, which could be better than C… Recently I was sitting through a “Public health discussion” – that so much of resources and interventions have been put into this group and has led to excellent results in some parts of the country but other parts have not done well, an...

An old write up - written during the holidays...but did not have the courage to post it...!! Accompanying your spouse to shop for clothes could be a tiring and burdensome activity for some. There are those rare men who enjoy this, so thank God if you are one of them. But if you are one, who does not detest shopping but consider as a necessary submission as part of the married life, you need to go though, is it possible to change it an enriching experience? I believe so. Four steps to make it such an experience. As you enter, observe, Celebrate and enjoy the creativity of God, the colours he has created, the beauty of creation, the variety of people. Celebrate the image of God, in us humans, evident through the ability to create dresses and various colours. As your wife tries various dresses, Reflect on the imperfection we carry in our lives due to fall. Reflect on ways humans try to recapture the lost perfection by trying to create a near perfect image through external a...

My last blog was almost 4 and half months back. I have been sitting and thinking, why has I "postponed" or "procrastinated" this for such a long time. Well the question was - did I "procrastinate" or "postpone"... In psychology, procrastination refers to the act of replacing high-priority actions with tasks of lower priority, or doing something from which one derives enjoyment, and thus putting off important tasks to a later time.  (Wikipedia) Postponement is a  business  strategy that maximizes possible benefit and minimizes  risk  by delaying further  investment  into a product or service until the last possible moment.  (Wikipedia) Was it because "blogging" was "low priority" or I found something "more enjoyable" that blogging could be easily put off? Or was this strategic delay for a perceived "right time"....? Both seems to be farfetched.....the fact was that blogging went off the ho...

Apoptosis or “Programmed Cell Death” is a phenomenon which excites Basic Research Scientists much.  Apoptosis ( æ p ə ˈ t oʊ s ɪ s / ) is the process of  programmed cell death  (PCD) that may occur in  multicellular organisms .     Biochemical   events lead to characteristic cell changes ( morphology ) and death. They believe that, if we identify the mechanism of “Apoptosis” this might contribute to understanding “aging” and then could lead to discover ways to prevent aging and death! Apoptosis – of Programmed Cell Death are of many types. One – what I would want to call as “Death before Life”. The tadpole, which becomes a frog, loses its tail by “Programmed cell death” or Apoptosis so that it becomes the “frog” it is meant to be. Even Humans, in our development inside the mother’s womb go through Apoptosis, so that we are born as are expected to be – a full formed Neonate. This is a onetime event, in each location of t...

What do you do when the protector of the system becomes the destroyer of the system? In Health, the Immunological disorders like Lupus or others are examples of such a situation. The immune system that is expected to be protector of the body system creates havoc in most of the immunological disorders by turning against the normal body cells. We find this in Nations too. Groups created to support and protect parts of a nation turn against nation itself. Punjab Afghanistan etc. are examples in our generation itself. You become your own enemy, unable to keep your own system under control, and then chaos and havoc breaks out. In Medicine, what we do is, we suppress the immune system with strong immunosuppressant’s, thus controlling the chaos, but leaving the body vulnerable to destruction from external attacks of infections. Countries destroy the groups, which have broken away from their control, but with the risk of leaving the nation divided, vulnerable and broken. ...