• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.89-96
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• 1997

This study was designed to determine whether cognitive impairment was evident in patients with SLE. Also, it aimed to examine the association of cognitive impairment with other clinical variables. The subjects consisted of 20 patients with mildly active SLE and 20 healthy controls. Methods : A total of 20 SLE patients and 20 normal controls completed a computerized neuropsychological test battery using Vienna Test System. These included Cognitrone test, Continuous attention test, Corsi block tapping test, Standard progressive matrices. Also, neuro-behavioral cognitive status examination was done. The symptom severity of depression was measured with Beck Depression Inventory, Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, and current medications were documented. Disease activity was rated using the SLE diasease activity index (SLEDAI). Results : SLE patients had poorer performance than normal controls on the tests of Cognitrone, attention, nonverbal IQ and memory, independent of age, education, disease activity, steroid use and depression status. Conclusion : Cognitive dysfunction was not uncommon in ambulatory SLE patients as measured by standardized neuropsychological tests. It seemed to occur independently of various clinical variables. These findings would suggest that cognitive dysfunction in SLE may be explained by reflecting subclinical central nervous system(CNS) involvement, rather than coexisting psychological distress due to chronic illness or side effect of medication.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.66 no.1
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• pp.72-81
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• 2023

Objective : Ischemia and hemorrhage of pituitary adenomas (PA) caused important clinical syndrome. However, the differences on clinical characteristics and surgical outcomes between these two kinds apoplexy were less reported. Methods : A retrospective analysis was made of patients with pituitary apoplexy between January 2013 and June 2018. Baseline and clinical characteristics before surgery were reviewed. All patients underwent transsphenoidal surgery and were followed up at least 1 year. Results : Total 67 cases (5.8%) among 1147 pituitary tumor patients were enrolled, which consisted of 28 (~2.4%) ischemic PA and 39 (~3.4%) hemorrhagic PA. There were more male patients in the ischemic group compared with hemorrhagic group (78.6% vs 53.8%, p=0.043). However, the mean age, tumor size and functional tumor ratio were significant higher in the hemorrhagic group. Headache was more common in ischemic PA (82.1%) than that of hemorrhagic PA (51.3%, p=0.011). Magnetic resonance imaging findings found that mucosal thickening and enhancement of the sphenoid sinus was observed in 15 ischemic PA patients (n=27, 55.6%), but none in patients with hemorrhagic PA (n=38, p<0.0001). It was worth noting that the rate of pre-surgical hypopituitarism in ischemic PA patients were seemed higher than that in hemorrhagic PA patients, but not significant. The two groups got a total tumor resection rate at 94.1% and 92.9%, independently. No significant difference on the operative time, blood loss in operation and complications in perioperative period was observed in two groups. After operation, cranial nerve symptoms recovered to normal at 81.8% of ischemic PA patients and 82.6% of hemorrhagic PA patients. Importantly, the incidence of postoperative hypopituitarism partially decreased in both groups, among which the rate of hypothyroidism in ischemic PA patients significantly decreased from 46.4% to 18.5% (p=0.044). Conclusion : Patients with ischemic PA presented different clinical characteristics to the hemorrhagic ones. Transsphenoidal surgery should be considered for the patients with neuro-ophthalmic deficits and might benefit for pituitary function recovery of the apoplectic adenoma patients, especially pituitary thyroid axis in ischemic PA patients.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.51 no.9
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• pp.964-970
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• 2008

Purpose : Methylmalonic aciduria (MMA) and propionic aciduria (PA) are inborn errors in the catabolism of branched-chain amino acids. The study was undertaken to investigate the genotypes and clinical features of Korean patients with MMA and PA. Methods : This study examined 12 patients with MMA and eight with PA. We analyzed various clinical features, laboratory findings, treatments, and neuro-developmental outcomes. Diagnoses were based on the presence of characteristic compounds detected by amino acid analysis in serum and organic acid analysis in urine. Mutation analysis was performed in the genes of MUT, MMAA, MMAB, and MMACHC for MMA and PCCA and PCCB for PA. Results : Among the 20 patients, six patients were diagnosed before one month of age and nine patients were diagnosed after the newborn period. Five patients were diagnosed via a neonatal screening test. Patients with early-onset forms had more severe illness at presentation and generally poor outcomes. A favorable outcome was obtained in 55% patients; most of them were of a late-onset type or diagnosed by neonatal mass screening test without symptoms. Genotypes were confirmed in all patients with MMA. We detected 11 different mutations by MUT gene analysis in 10 patients, and three different mutations in MMACHC genes in two patients. PCCA and PCCB gene mutations were identified in 14 of the 16 alleles, in eight patients with PA. Conclusion : Organic aciduria is a fatal disease; however, better outcomes are expected whenever early diagnosis and prompt management are made possible. Mutation analysis is useful for confirming diagnoses and planning management strategies.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.17-23
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• 1984

For nearly a century it has been known that chemical activity accompanies mental activity, but only recently has it been possible to begin to examine its exact nature. Positron-emitting radioactive tracers have made it possible to study the chemistry of the human mind in health and disease, using chiefly cyclotron-produced radionuclides, carbon-11, fluorine-18 and oxygen-15. It is now well established that measurable increases in regional cerebral blood flow, glucose and oxygen metabolism accompany the mental functions of perception, cognition, emotion and motion. On May 25, 1983 the first imaging of a neuroreceptor in the human brain was accomplished with carbon-11 methyl spiperone, a ligand that binds preferentially to dopamine-2 receptors, 80% of which are located in the caudate nucleus and putamen. Quantitative imaging of serotonin-2, opiate, benzodiazapine and muscarinic cholinergic receptors has subsequently been accomplished. In studies of normal men and women, it has been found that dopamine and serotonin receptor activity decreases dramatically with age, such a decrease being more pronounced in men than in women and greater in the case of dopamine receptors than serotonin-2 receptors. Preliminary studies in patients with neuropsychiatric disorders suggests that dopamine-2 receptor activity is diminished in the caudate nucleus of patients with Huntington's disease. Positron tomography permits quantitative assay of picomolar quantities of neuro-receptors within the living human brain. Studies of patients with Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, acute and chronic pain states and drug addiction are now in progress. The growth of any scientific field is based on a paradigm or set of ideas that the community of scientists accepts. The unifying principle of nuclear medicine is the tracer principle applied to the study of human disease. Nineteen hundred and sixty-three was a landmark year in which technetium-99m and the Anger camera combined to move the field from its latent stage into a second stage characterized by exponential growth within the framework of the paradigm. The third stage, characterized by gradually declining growth, began in 1973. Faced with competing advances, such as computed tomography and ultrasonography, proponents and participants in the field of nuclear medicine began to search for greener pastures or to pursue narrow sub-specialties. Research became characterized by refinements of existing techniques. In 1983 nuclear medicine experienced what could be a profound change. A new paradigm was born when it was demonstrated that, despite their extremely low chemical concentrations, in the picomolar range, it was possible to image and quantify the distribution of receptors in the human body. Thus, nuclear medicine was able to move beyond physiology into biochemistry and pharmacology. Fundamental to the science of pharmacology is the concept that many drugs and endogenous substances, such as neurotransmitters, react with specific macromolecules that mediate their pharmacologic actions. Such receptors are usually identified in the study of excised tissues, cells or cell membranes, or in autoradiographic studies in animals. The first imaging and quantification of a neuroreceptor in a living human being was performed on May 25, 1983 and reported in the September 23, 1983 issue of SCIENCE. The study involved the development and use of carbon-11 N-methyl spiperone (NMSP), a drug with a high affinity for dopamine receptors. Since then, studies of dopamine and serotonin receptors have been carried out in over 100 normal persons or patients with various neuropsychiatric disorders. Exactly one year later, the first imaging of opitate receptors in a living human being was performed [1].

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.417-428
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• 2004

Conservation reasoning makes operational thought possible as a functional tool and it is the essential concept not only in the area of science and mathematics but also in several aspects of daily life. The abilities to solve mathematical problems and that of scientific reasoning and abstract way of thinking depend on whether thereis conservation reasoning or not and they are critical concepts that enables us to confirm the steps of cognitive development. Therefor in the study, we emphasized the issue that is the ways to speed up the scientific era by analyzing the correlation between the formation of conservation reasoning and neuro-cognitive variables. About 50% of 1-3 grade students did not had conservation reasoning skills. The formation of conservations was not linear. Scientific reasoning ability, planing and inhibiting ability were significantly different in levels of conservation, And, conservation reasonings were significantly correlated with cognitive variables. Scientific reasoning and planning ability significantly explained about 20% of the conservation reasoning ability of 1-3 grades.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2014

The bi-plane cerebrovascular angiography radiation is done the radiation exposure at the forward and lateral direction as opposed to the one of the source. So, the exposure dose of radiation workers increases further. Therefore, the medical diagnostic radiation workers as well as patients is interested to ways to reduce the dose. The exposure dose of cerebral angiography and interventional radiology must be considered the primary radiation of X-ray tube directly, scattered primary radiation between lateral tube and lateral detector and relatively small secondary scatter radiation in the walls of room. The aim of study is that the exposure dose of primary and scatter radiation reduce as much as possible to install protection device of lateral protection than common shielding of table and ceiling. As a result, the dose of fluoroscopy was reduced approximately 3.64 times the gonads, thyroid approximately 3.13 times, 4.42 times around eyes. And the dose of DSA was reduced approximately 4.98 times the gonads, thyroid approximately 3.00 times, 1.67 times around eyes. Consequently, medical practitioners can be helpful for radiation dose-exposure for the lateral protection of bi-plane cerebrovascular angiography more than the common shield method in cerebrovascular angiography and interventional radiological procedures.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.324-340
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• 1990

Support has always been considered an important nursing concept. However, there is no agreement among nurse researchers as to a conceptual definition of supportive nursing or meaningful supportive behaviors. Clarification of the concept, support in nursing, is necessary to promote communication among nurses on nursing behaviors that are effective in providing support and on understanding the relevant properties and charcteristics of the concept, supportive nursing care. The objectives of the study were : 1. to analyse the concept, support in nursing, in order to provide a definition of supportive nursing care, and 2. to operationalize the definition of supportive nursing care and use it as an experimental nursing intervention for patients with low back pain. The first part of the study used the concept analysis approach developed by Walker and Avant(1983) to define the concept of supportive nursing care. The properties of supportive nursing care, defined by this analysis, included perception of supportive need, reciprocal interaction(Transaction), listening, providing empathy and information related to health, and confirmation of the patient's verbal and non - verbal response. The second part, the experimental part of the study, was done using King's(1970) Interpersonal Theory for Nursing. The concept, supportive nursing care, as defined in the concept analysis was operationalized and used as the experimental intervention. The experiment tested the effectiveness of the independent variable, supportive nursing care on the dependent variables, depression, mood and patient satisfaction, in the patients with low back pain in army hospitals. The instruments used to measure the dependent variables were Zung's(1965) Self- Rating Depression Scale, Ryman and Colleagues'(1974) Mood Questionnaire and LaMonica and Colleagues'(1986) Patient Satisfaction Scale. The experimental design used for this study was a Solomon 4 group experimental design. This design has the strength of allowing for observation of the main effects of supportive nursing care and pretesting, and for observation of the interaction effects of pretesting and supportive nursing care. The design includes one experimental group and three control groups. The Subjects of this study were 150 young male patients with low back pain on Neuro - Surgical Wards in three general army hospitals. There were 35 in the experimental group, 39 in the pre - posttest control group, 36 in the treatment - posttest control group and 40 in the posttest only control group. Supportive nursing care, as operationalized by the researcher according to the concept analysis, was given to the patients in the experimental group and the treatment -posttest control group, individually for 30 minute sessions, every other day for 5 days. Data collection was done using a questionnaire. The data were collected in a pretest one week before the supportive nursing care sessions, a posttest immediately after the sessions and follow- up test one week later. Hypotheses testing was done using 2×2 factorial analysis of variance and Meta analysis(Stouffer's Z method). The results of this study are summarized as follows : 1. Hypothesis Ⅰ, “There will be a difference on depression level between the patients with low back pain who receive supportive nursing care and those who do not receive supportive nursing care”, was supported (F＝8.49, p＜.05). 2. Hypothesis Ⅱ, “There will be a difference on mood level between the patients with low back pain who receive supportive nursing care and those who to not receive supportive nursing care”, was supported (Z meta＝2.17, p＜.05). 3. Hypothesis Ⅲ, “There will be a difference on satisfaction level between the patients with low back pain who receive supportive nursing care and those who do not receive supportive nursing care”, was supported (F＝13.67, p＜.05). 4. ANOVA, done to examine the interaction effect of history and maturation, showed no significant difference on the dependent variables between the observations of the pretest scores of the experimental group, the pretest scores of the pre- posttest control group and the posttest score of the posttest only control group. 5. To test for continuing effect of supportive nursing care, paired t-test was done to compare the scores for the dependent variables at the posttest and at the one week later follow-up test. No significant difference on the scores for the dependent variables was found between the posttest scores and the follow-up test scores for the two groups that received supportive nursing care, the experimental group and the treatment-posttest control group. In conclusion, it was found that in the case of young soldiers with low back pain in army hospitals, their depression level was decreased, their mood state was changed positively and their satisfaction level was increased by receiving supportive nursing care. Further, the effectiveness of the supportive nursing care lasted for at least one week in this study. The significance of this study to nursing is in the analysis of the concept of supportive nursing care and the demonstration of the effectiveness of supportive nursing care as an intervention within the limits of the study.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.135-164
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• 2003

The operating room is the major facility that costs the highest investment per unit area in a hospital. It requires commitment of hospital resources such as manpower, equipments and material. The quantity of these resources committed actually differs from one type of operation to another. Because of this, it is not an easy task to allocate the operating cost to individual clinical departments that share the operating room. A practical way to do so may be to collect and add the operating costs incurred by each clinical department and charge the net cost to the account of the corresponding clinical department. It has been customary to allocate the cost of the operating room to the account of each individual department on the basis of the ratio of the number of operations of the department or the total revenue by each operating room. In an attempt to set up more rational cost allocation method than the customary method, this study proposes a new cost allocation method that calls for itemizing the operation cost into its constituent expenses in detail and adding them up for the operating cost incurred by each individual department. For comparison of the new method with the conventional method, the operating room in the main building of hospital A near Seoul is chosen as a study object. It is selected because it is the biggest operating room in hospital A and most of operations in this hospital are conducted in this room. For this study the one-month operation record performed in January 2001 in this operating room is analyzed to allocate the per-month operation cost to six clinical departments that used this operating room; the departments of general surgery, orthopedic surgery, neuro-surgery, dental surgery, urology, and obstetrics & gynecology. In the new method(or method 1), each operation cost is categorized into three major expenses; personnel expense, material expense, and overhead expense and is allocated into the account of the clinical department that used the operating room. The method 1 shows that, among the total one-month operating cost of 814,054 thousand wons in this hospital, 163,714 thousand won is allocated to GS, 335,084 thousand won to as, 202,772 thousand won to NS, 42,265 thousand won to uno, 33,423 thousand won to OB/GY, and 36.796 thousand won to DS. The allocation of the operating cost to six departments by the new method is quite different from that by the conventional method. According to one conventional allocation method based on the ratio of the number of operations of a department to the total number of operations in the operating room(method 2 hereafter), 329,692 thousand won are allocated to GS, 262,125 thousand won to as, 87,104 thousand won to NS, 59,426 thousand won to URO, 51.285 thousand won to OB/GY, and 24,422 thousand won to DS. According to the other conventional allocation method based on the ratio of the revenue of a department(method 3 hereafter), 148,158 thousand won are allocated to GS, 272,708 thousand won to as, 268.638 thousand won to NS, 45,587 thousand won to uno, 51.285 thousand won to OB/GY, and 27.678 thousand won to DS. As can be noted from these results, the cost allocation to six departments by method 1 is strikingly different from those by method 2 and method 3. The operating cost allocated to GS by method 2 is about twice by method 1. Method 3 makes allocations of the operating cost to individual departments very similarly as method 1. However, there are still discrepancies between the two methods. In particular the cost allocations to OB/GY by the two methods have roughly 53.4% discrepancy. The conventional methods 2 and 3 fail to take into account properly the fact that the average time spent for the operation is different and dependent on the clinical department, whether or not to use expensive clinical material dictate the operating cost, and there is difference between the official operating cost and the actual operating cost. This is why the conventional methods turn out to be inappropriate as the operating cost allocation methods. In conclusion, the new method here may be laborious and cause a complexity in bookkeeping because it requires detailed bookkeeping of the operation cost by its constituent expenses and also by individual clinical department, treating each department as an independent accounting unit. But the method is worth adopting because it will allow the concerned hospital to estimate the operating cost as accurately as practicable. The cost data used in this study such as personnel expense, material cost, overhead cost may not be correct ones. Therefore, the operating cost estimated in the main text may not be the same as the actual cost. Also, the study is focused on the case of only hospital A, which is hardly claimed to represent the hospitals across the nation. In spite of these deficiencies, this study is noteworthy from the standpoint that it proposes a practical allocation method of the operating cost to each individual clinical department.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.183-194
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• 2009

Purpose : This study was performed not only to compare the brain activation regions associated with sexual arousal induced by visual stimulation and SP6 acupuncture, but also to evaluate its differential neuro-anatomical mechanism in healthy women using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at 3 Tesla (T). Subjects and methods : A total of 21 healthy right-handed female volunteers (mean age 22 years, range 19 to 32) underwent fMRI on a 3T MR scanner. The stimulation paradigm for sexual arousal consisted of two alternating periods of rest and activation. It began with a 1-minute rest period, 3 minutes of stimulation with either of an erotic video film or SP6 acupuncture, followed by 1-minute rest. In addition, a comparative study on the brain activation patterns between an acupoint and a shampoint nearby GB37 was performed. The fMRI data were obtained from 20 slices parallel to the AC-PC line on an axial plane, giving a total of 2,000 images. The mean activation maps were constructed and analyzed by using the statistical parametric mapping (SPM99) software. Results : As comparison with the shampoint, the acupoint showed 5 times and 2 times higher activities in the neocortex and limbic system, respectively. Note that brain activation in response to stimulation with the shampoint was not observed in the regions including the HTHL in the diencephalon, GLO and AMYG in the basal ganglia, and SMG in the parietal lobe. In the comparative study of visual stimulation vs. SP6 acupuncture, the mean activation ratio of stimulus was not significantly different to each other in both the neocortex and the limbic system (p < 0.05). The mean activities induced by both stimuli were not significantly different in the neocortex, whereas the acupunctural stimulation showed higher activity in the limbic system (p < 0.05). Conclusions : This study compared the differential brain activation patterns and the neural mechanisms for sexual arousal, which were induced by visual stimulation and SP6 acupuncture by using 3T fMRI. These findings will be useful to understand the theory of traditional acupuncture and acupoint channel in scientific point of view.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.127-137
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• 1998

The authors surveyed extrafamilial sexual abuse in the children under 15years old by the physician's reports. We sent the semi-structured child sexual abuse questionnaires to 7055 board certified pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, family medicine and emergency medicine. Total respondents were 1205. The results from these respondents were as followings. 1) The number of respondents who have had the experience of treating victims of extraf/amilial child sexual abuse were 641(53.2% of total respondents). 2) 338(52.7%) of the perpetrators were known persons and 277(43.2%) were strangers, the most common age bracket were 20s, 30s and 10s, and almost all(99.8%) of the perpetrators were male. 3) The mean age of victims was $9.7{\pm}3.5$ years old, and almost all(98.6%) of the victims were female. 4) The ways by which extrafamilial child sexual abuses were found were victim’s own reports：273(62.6%), pain complaint, 156(24.3%) and abnormal behavior 96(15.0%), other person’s report 72(11.2%), detection during examination 19(3.0%), and pregnancy 4(0.6%). 5) Time lags between extrafamilial child sexual abuses and hospital visits were within 24 hours 332 (51.8%) and from 1 day to 1 week 232(36.2%), victims were rather quickly 6) Physical complications were perineal wound 571(89.1%), hymen rupture 349(54.4%), wound of other part of body 124(19.3%), pregnancy 37(5.8%), and sexually transmitted disease 18(2.8%), and other serious complications such as vaginal-rectal lacerations 8, intastinal bleeding 7, death 2, hypotensive shock 1. These results suggest considerable numbers of physicians have had the experience of treating victims of extrafamilial child sexual abuses, and extrafamilial child sexual abuses are the major medical as well as social issue in children in Korea.