Appraising information in a language not your own

I was looking for information in Portuguese or Spanish about the Zika virus. 

I had shared the National Library of Medicine's page of resources on the lis-medical discussion list, and had a response from  Neil Pakenham-Walsh of the splendid HIFA2015 group to say there were few items in Portuguese or Spanish, the languages of the areas most affected. HIFA have a Portuguese discussion group and they had been discussing it. 

 

According to the WHO's ePortuguese project,  Portuguese is the sixth most spoken language in the world and the most widely spoken in the Southern Hemisphere, but is not an official UN language, so there is often a lack of information in it.

 

So I started to look and ask around.  I have included my findings into the March Internet sites of interest column for the Health Libraries Group Newsletter, sent last week to the editor.

 

I got some useful sites from colleagues on the EAHIL discussion list, many of whom are course in Portugal or Spain.

 

But I also googled it.  google.pt found some material in English (well cited or linked to, I imagine, and the virus has the same name in both languages), but of course some things in Portuguese, which was the point.  But I don't speak Portuguese, so now would I know which sites to trust?

 

Actually it is an interesting question how much I can check the information in medical websites in English for accuracy, given that I am not a medic, but I certainly can't do it for Portuguese language sites!

 

 But I can check: 

• the date it was last changed;
  
• the scope of the information - what aspects of the subject does it cover? With this example, at this time, does it give advice for travellers or pregnant women?;
  
• who writes or edits the information and their qualifications;
  
• the references and links, and how up to date they are. Are there any?  What are they?  News items, official information, or peer reviewed articles? Are there links to the latest research about, say, Zika and microcephaly?
  
• whose site it is.  A Brazilian site had .gov in the URL.  One from Portugal did not, but an inspection revealed it was a government ministry.  It was subsequently mentioned to me by another EAHIL member, which confirmed my thought about it. 
  
• what sort of site it is - this assumes that a popular news site will look as I expect it, but could there be clues in layout, presence of advertisements, and perhaps the topics of other stories that appear?  Are those stories world news, celebrity stories, or all health or science related?

 Is it possible to be satisfied with all these things, and still end up with inaccurate information?  Is this actually much different from what you do to evaluate information in your own language(s)?

 

There might be a cultural aspect too.  In theory I could write an information sheet in another language, but I would not have knowledge of that culture and might produce something unhelpful or inappropriate.  Information from a country where the language is a first or major language, or from a global concern like the WHO should be a good starting point.

 

Then there is Google Translate, which offers its services if you use Chrome to read a page in a  language not your default.  That is a topic best saved for another post!

Dementia books

I went to Hillsborough Public Library, and found these two books:

Graham, N. and Warner, J. (2009). Understanding Alzheimer's Disease and other dementias. Poole, Family Doctor Publications.

The authors are UK based psychiatrists, and the book series is published in association with the BMA.  I liked the warning in the back cover blurb about the perils of information from the web, and there is a bit before the list of useful resources at the end about web searching, which could perhaps do with repeating that advice.   The list of resources looks dated now (after only 6 years), at least one organisation has changed its name, and the UK government website has changed its address.   The book covers what dementia is, symptoms, treatments (I wonder if this has dated too), help, living with dementia, future prospects, a Q and A, and a piece about how the brain works.   There are then pages for the reader to fill in with their personal and health details, and medications.  As the title suggests, it covers Alzheimer's and other types of dementia, even saying brief things about Korsakoff's Syndrome and CJD. 

The Alzheimer's Society are selling this book from their website.  It is not clear if it is a more recent edition, but Amazon are still selling this edition.

Hatzikalminios, C. (2014). Alzheimer's: reduce your risk and revitalise.  Melbourne, Wilkinson.

The author is an American nonfiction writer, rather than a health professional, although she has been a photo researcher for university and medical books.   The publisher is Australian.  I'd be wary of drug information, but although she talks of FDA approval, she does give UK names.  It mentions one drug that the other book says is not recommended by NICE (see below!!).  The layout of the book is clear, and the "prospects for the future" part will potentially be more up to date than Graham and Warner.  There are several boxes talking about pieces of research being done (with some, but not all, detail of who and where published).  There is a "preventing" section, and I wonder about that, however, to be fair the author does say that scientists speculate that the things described might prevent it.  The list of organisations at the end of the book has only one UK based one.

The drug referred to in both books is memantine. A search of NICE Evidence Search (for alzheimer's disease drugs, and then filtered to NICE publications) finds NICE Technology Appraisal Guidance TA217, produced in March 2011.  It updates NICE Technology Appraisal Guidance 111, originally produced in 2006 but updated in 2007 and 2009.  TA217, the 2011 one, says, "memantine is now recommended as an option for managing moderate Alzheimer’s disease for people who cannot take AChE inhibitors, and as an option for managing severe Alzheimer’s disease".

This shows that evidence and advice do change, and an up to date book is a good idea!

The Reading Well Books on Prescription scheme has a list of books on dementia, undated, according to a news item, launched in January 2015.  It covers information and advice, books for carers, books on living with dementia, and books telling personal stories.  I have used this list to help check books in stock at work, to see if there is anything we do not have.   Graham and Warner is on the list.   The scheme is supported by health professionals and public libraries (Hillsborough had copies), and several dementia organisations helped compile this list.