Publications by authors named "Alan S H Ch'ng"

Article Synopsis
  • Alzheimer's disease (AD) poses significant challenges for health policy in Malaysia, particularly regarding the costs associated with treating older adults.
  • A study was conducted in six Malaysian hospitals to evaluate the direct healthcare expenditures for AD patients aged 65 and above from 2016 to 2021, utilizing a bottom-up micro-costing approach.
  • The findings revealed an average annual direct healthcare cost of RM2641.30 (USD 572.45) per patient, with costs increasing alongside disease severity and notably higher expenses for patients aged 81 and above, emphasizing the need for effective healthcare policies for geriatric care.
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Introduction: Polypharmacy and potentially inappropriate medications (PIM) are common among older adults. To guide appropriate prescribing, healthcare professionals often rely on explicit criteria to identify and deprescribe inappropriate medications, or to start medications due to prescribing omission. However, most explicit PIM criteria were developed with inadequate guidance from quality metrics or integrating real-world data, which are rich and valuable data source.

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Article Synopsis
  • The Clinical Practice Guidelines aim to provide evidence-based recommendations for healthcare providers dealing with postmenopausal osteoporosis (OP) screening, diagnosis, and management.
  • A comprehensive literature review from 2014 onwards helped update the guidelines by formulating key clinical questions and evaluating relevant studies.
  • Recommended management includes assessing fracture risk, implementing non-pharmacological measures (like calcium intake and exercise), and choosing pharmacological treatments based on the patient's risk level, with regular assessments to adjust treatment as necessary.
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Background: Stroke is one of the most common noncommunicable diseases, with significant public health implications both globally and in Malaysia. The aim of this study was to evaluate post-stroke survivability as well as the major drug classes prescribed for hospitalized stroke patients.

Methods: A 5-year retrospective study was carried out on the survival of stroke patients admitted to Hospital Seberang Jaya, a main stroke center in the state of Penang, Malaysia.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study examines how COVID-19 spread differently across various regions in Malaysia and how demographic and socioeconomic factors influence this spread.
  • Using data on active cases from January to February 2021, the researchers employed spatial analysis methods to find patterns and correlations in the distribution of cases.
  • Key findings revealed that the Central and Southern regions experienced the highest case counts, and crucial factors influencing the spread included population density, average household income, and income inequality (GINI coefficient).
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Article Synopsis
  • - This study investigates the relationship between population density and COVID-19 infection rates in Malaysia during the third wave of the pandemic, focusing on data from over 51,000 active cases.
  • - Researchers used spatial analytics and cluster analysis to map COVID-19 cases and found that areas with higher population density experienced more significant outbreaks.
  • - The results revealed a strong correlation (0.912) between COVID-19 cases and population density, particularly in urban regions, indicating that densely populated areas are more vulnerable to the spread of the virus.
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Background: Frailty potentially influences clinicians' decision making on treatment provided they can select the appropriate assessment tools. This study aims to investigate the difference between the FRAIL scale and the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) in assessing frailty among community-dwelling older adults attending the General Medical Clinic (GMC) in Seberang Jaya Hospital, Penang, Malaysia.

Methods: The medical records of 95 older patients (age ≥ 65) who attended the GMC from 16 December 2019 to 10 January 2020 were reviewed.

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Global environmental change is mainly due to human behaviours and is a major threat to sustainability. Despite all the health and economic consequences, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on environmental health warrants the scientific community's attention. Thus, this article examined and narratively reviewed the impact of several drastic measures taken on the macro environment and holistic planetary health.

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The escalated burden of diabetes on the population's health has catalyzed rigorous scientific research to produce appropriate evidence for treatment and control. Malaysia suffers from the leading diabetes epidemic within the Western Pacific region. It is crucial to map the scientific landscape of diabetes research for the country to identify trends in productivity and determine whether research efforts are directed toward the needs-gaps priority for evidence synthesis that could be used for the drafting of policies and guidelines.

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Diabetes causes significant disabilities, reduced quality of life and mortality that imposes huge economic burden on societies and governments worldwide. Malaysia suffers a high diabetes burden in Asia, but the magnitude of healthcare expenditures documented to aid national health policy decision-making is limited. This systematic review aimed to document the economic burden of diabetes in Malaysia, and identify the factors associated with cost burden and the methods used to evaluate costs.

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Stroke has emerged as a major public health concern in Malaysia. We aimed to determine the trends and temporal associations of real-time health information-seeking behaviors (HISB) and stroke incidences in Malaysia. We conducted a countrywide ecological correlation and time series study using novel internet multi-timeline data stream of 6,282 hit searches and conventional surveillance data of 14,396 stroke cases.

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The continuum of evidence-based medicine (EBM) depends solely on clinicians' commitment to keep current with the latest clinical information. Exploration on clinicians' understanding of biostatistical results in the medical literature is sparse to date. This study aimed to evaluate clinicians' perceived understanding of biostatistical results in the medical literature and the factors influencing them.

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Importance: Management of painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy remains challenging. Most therapies provide symptomatic relief with varying degrees of efficacy. Tocotrienols have modulatory effects on the neuropathy pathway and may reduce neuropathic symptoms with their antioxidative and anti-inflammatory activities.

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