Introduction: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a demyelinating progressive disease which afflicts central nervous system. The cause remains uncertain but various factors such as infection, stress, immune deficiency and environmental factors may contribute to this disease. As a chronic disease with sudden and unpredictable attack, MS results in various stresses in patients’ lives. It seems that the more we know the extent of stress in patients’ lives, the more we can control it. The present study aimed at determining the extent of stress in patients suffering from MS who have referred to MS Association of Iran.Method: A cross sectional study was conducted using sequential sampling to recruit 600 patients suffering from MS. Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire (Coudron questionnaire). Descriptive statistics and one-way analysis of variance were used to analysis the data.Results: 79.3% of the patients had stressful thought habits and 76.3 % of them had stressful context in their private lives. Results of one-way analysis of variance showed a significant relationship between the amount of stressful thought habits and age (P=0.01), employment status (P=0.00) and duration of disease (P<0.000).Conclusion: Since the findings of this research revealed high stress of MS patients, identifying stress sources to improve their life qualities, providing appropriate education for coping and adapting with chronic disease related stress, seems to be necessary.

Advice, in any kind and purpose, shows the direction of man's thoughts toward the improvement of his life's conditions and obtaining prosperity. Sa'di, the Iranian supreme moral poet, whenever begins to give advice, talks so delicately, tenderly and firmly; his advices have been imitated during his next periods. The question of this article is that some Sa'di Ghazals, contrary to his other works that have made him well known for his teachings and experiences contains sidestepping from taking advice, in these ghazals, he not only avoids advice instead of advising his addressed, but also requests the adviser not to recommend him anymore, because he is involved in an incurable sickness i.e. the madness of love that is not match with the wisdom, and the advice which origins from the wisdom, has no opportunity to affect him. The method of this research is study and analysis; the conclusion is extracting and analyzing verses in which Sa'di avoids frankly any wisdom and taking advice but does not deviate from morality at all and emphasizes that in any case he takes advice except for love in which he cannot accept any recommendation on having patience for his beloved even in return for suffering hardships.

Background and Aim: Temporomandibular disorders (TMDs) can be associated with pain in other areas such as the neck. Multiple causes have been suggested for TMDs; parafunctional habits such as bruxism and clenching are among the most commonly suggested etiologies. This study aimed to assess the efficacy of the amendment of oral parafunctional habits in the improvement of TMDs and neck pain. Materials and Methods: This before-and-after interventional study was conducted on 136 patients with TMDs, parafunctional habits, and neck pain. The patients were instructed on how to quit their parafunctional habits and were followed up for two months. The neck pain disability index (NPDI), anamnestic dysfunction index (Ai), and clinical dysfunction index (Di) of TMD were evaluated before and after the modification of parafunctional habits. Data were analyzed using paired Student’ s t-test, Wilcoxon, Mann-U-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, and Spearman tests. P<0. 05 was considered significant. Results: Most TMD patients were women (74. 5%). The patients’ scores significantly decreased from 4 to 1 in the Ai, from 8 to 1 in the Di, and from 49 to 25 in the NPDI two months after the intervention (P<0. 05). There were no significant differences in the NPDI, Ai, and Di scores following the amendment of oral parafunctional habits between males and females or among different age ranges. Age did not significantly correlate with the changes in the NPDI, Ai, and Di scores after the improvement of oral parafunctional habits. The NPDI significantly correlated with the Ai score. Conclusion: It seems that parafunctional habit modification improves TMDs and neck pain.

Background: Cigarette smoking is the first preventable cause of morbidity and mortality in the world and can result in various diseases, disability and death. International studies have reported that about half of the smoking-related deaths occur in the Middle Ages We decided to assess the age of death among smokers and non-smokers in this study. Materials and Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at Tehran Behesht-e-Zahra Cemetery between September 2005 and March 2006. To estimate the sample size, a pilot study was performed on 112 deaths in March 2005 and based on the results; the sample size was estimated to be 2500. Five days of each month were selected randomly. On these days a physician (co-author) visited the Cemetery office and collected the data with the help of office operator. Information was obtained from first-degree relatives of the deceased after obtaining consent. The under-study variables were age at the time of death and cigarette use. Data were analyzed by SPSS software version 11 and using ANOVA test.Results: A total of 7858 cases were studied out of which 57.3% were males. There were 63.1% (4960) non-smokers, 25.1% (1971) smokers and 11.8% (927) ex-smokers. The mean age of death among total under-study population was 56.8 yrs (55.1 yrs in males and 57.6 yrs in females). The mean age of death was 57.9 yrs among non-smokers, 50.1 yrs among smokers and 56.8 yrs among ex-smokers (p=0.00).Conclusion: Results showed that age of death was lower among smokers but we could not determine a direct correlation between cigarette smoking and death in these patients.