• Archives of Plastic Surgery
• /
• v.48 no.4
• /
• pp.384-388
• /
• 2021

Adequate positioning of the hand is a critical step in hand fracture operative repair that can impact both the clinical outcome and the efficiency of the operation. In this paper, we introduce the use of a thermoplastic splint with an added thumb stabilizing component as a means to increase the surgeon's autonomy and to streamline the patient care pathway. The thermoplastic splint is custom fabricated preoperatively by the specialist hand therapist. The splint is used prior, during, and post operation with minimal modification. The thumb component assists maintaining the forearm in a stable pronated position whilst drilling and affixing metal work. This is demonstrated in the video of removal of metal work and open reduction and internal fixation of a metacarpal fracture.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.145-173
• /
• 2016

A patient's Right to Self-Determination or his/her Right of Autonomy in the Republic of Korea has traditionally been understood as being composed of two elements. The first, is the patient's Right to Know as it pertains to the physician's Duty to Report [the Medical Situation] to the patient; the second, is the patient's Right to Consent and Right of Refusal as it pertains to the physician's Duty to Inform [for Patient's Consent]. The legal and ethical positions pertaining to the patient's autonomous decision, particularly those in the interest of the patient's not wanting to know about his/her own body or medical condition, were therefore acknowledged as passively expressed entities borne from the patient's forfeiture of the Right to Know and Right to Consent, and exempting the physician from the Duty to Inform. The potential risk of adverse effects rising as a result of applying the Informed Consent Dogma to situations described above were only passively recognized, seen merely as a preclusion of the Informed Consent Dogma or a denial of liability on part of the physician. In short, the legal measures that guarantee a patient's 'Wish for Ignorance' are not currently being understood and acknowledged under the active positions of the patient's 'Right Not to Know' and the physician's 'Duty to Consideration' (such as the duty not to inform). Practical and theoretical issues arise absent the recognition of these active positions of the involved parties. The question of normative evaluation of cases where a sizable amount of harm has come up on the patient as a result of the physician explaining to or informing the patient of his/her medical condition despite the patient previously waiving the Right to Consent or exempting the physician from the Duty to Inform, is one that is yet to be addressed; that of ascertaining direct evidence/legal basis that can cement legality to situations where the physician foregoes the informing process under consideration that doing so may cause harm to the patient, is another. Therefore it is the position of this paper that the Right [Not to Know] and the Duty [to Consideration] play critical roles both in meeting the legal normative requirements pertaining to the enrichment of the patient's Right to Self-Determination and the prevention of adverse effects as it pertains to the provision of [unwanted] medical information.

• Journal of Oriental Neuropsychiatry
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.159-169
• /
• 2005

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is characterised by progressive impairment of motor functions up to a complete loss of autonomy, and most of ALS patients are associated with the total preservation of mental state like depression. A patient in this case report had ALS and during progress of ALS had undergone depression and Hwabyung's Symptoms. This patient was treated with herb medication, acupuncture, psychotherapy(relaxation & councelling) primarily. During the 18 days of treatment from admission, the patient experienced much improvement of depression and Hwabyung's Symptoms. and ALS's symptom like weakness & numbness of lower limb had improved considerably, too.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.413-459
• /
• 2008

The Law has intervened to define rare circumstances in which a person should choose continuing life in United States. On the one hand, the law has traditionally acted to preservelife and to respect the sanctity of life. On the other hand, one's control over one's own body, and the right to determine what kind of medical care one will receive, is equally well respected and historically grounded. The competent patients have the right to forgo life-sustaining treatment, courts in United States have left many unanswered questions about the nature of that right. The right to choose to forgo life-sustaining treatment is a manifestation of a patient's autonomy interest. In United States, The Karen Quilan case gave rise to legislative activity in the host of state capitals, and several states had adopted statutes that formally recognized some forms of written directives describing some circumstances in which certain kinds of medical care could be terminated. These statues were sometimes dominated 'living will' acts, sometimes 'right to die' acts and ocasionally 'natural death' acts. Today virtually every state has produced a living will statue. In Korea, courts do not permit a terminally ill person to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment. Living wills apply in case of terminal illness owing to a defect in legislation. Now In Korea, these lively dispute of legal policy on the preconditions and concrete procedure of living will act and natural death act. Through the legislation of living will act and natural death act, we should prepare some circumstances to respect patient's autonomy on the right to die. We should frame the cultural standard to make a decision of forgoing life-sustainin1g treatment under the discreet procedure.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.31-48
• /
• 2014

The concept of Health Related Quality of Life and its determinants have evolved since the 1980s. Although many researchers have published articles of technology usage in hospitals and the installation of technology based healthcare system, the research about applying the information technology to improve the patients' perceived quality of healthcare services is still limited. In general, services are deeds, processes and performances that are essentially concerns of the consumer. The healthcare service quality depends on tangible factors, such as equipments, facilities, and the quality of hospital staff and also the intangible ones. The main purpose of this work is to establish new model and find out the contribution of information technology to enhance the patients' perceived quality of healthcare service. We attempted to examine the main information technology related factors in 3 aspects, namely quality of information, the technology accessibility and the community that can improve patients' perceived quality of healthcare services. Offline and online questionnaires were used to measure the patients' perceived quality and were distributed to 384 people in 2 countries, Laos and South Korea. A principle component analysis and multiple regressions were used to verify our model. Results show that the use of information technology has partial positive effect on patient-physician interaction in both countries. However, patient knowledge and patient autonomy which are the 2 dimensions of patient-physician interaction has significant positive effect on patients' perceived quality of healthcare service.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.33-39
• /
• 2016

Background: Elements of informed consent including capacity, disclosure, understanding, voluntariness, and permission of the participant, are all crucial for clinical trials to be legally and ethically valid. During the informed consent process, the patient information leaflet is an important information source which prospective research subjects can utilize in their decision-making. In the adequate provision of information, KGCP guideline necessitate 20 specific items, as well as the use language that individuals can understand. This study measures the vocabulary level of patient information leaflets in an effort to provide an objective evaluation on the readability of such material. Methods: The word difficulty of 13 leaflets was quantitatively evaluated using Kim kwang Hae's vocabulary grading framework, which was compared to the difficulty level of words found in the $6^{th}$ grade Korean textbook. The quantitative outcomes were statistically analyzed using chi-squared tests and linear by linear association for ordinal data. Results: There was a statistically significant difference between the vocabulary level and frequency of words in leaflets and the 6th Korean textbook. The leaflets were on average 260 sentences and about roughly 15 pages long, including lay language (easier or equal to language used in primary school) of around 12% less; technical language of around 4.5% more. As the vocabulary grades increase, there was a distinct difference in vocabulary level between Korean textbook and each information leaflet (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Patient information leaflets may fail to provide appropriate information for self-determination by clinical trial subject through the difficulty level of its wording. Improvements in the degree of patients' understanding and appropriate use of information leaflets are collaboratively equipped to strengthen patient's autonomy and therefore guaranteeing participant's rights.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.52 no.2
• /
• pp.134-143
• /
• 2022

Purpose: The study aimed to understand the delirium experience of intensive care unit (ICU) patients. Methods: We performed a qualitative study using Colaizzi's phenomenological method. Eleven patients, who experienced delirium according to the Confusion Assessment Method for ICU, participated after transferring to general wards from the ICU. Individual in-depth semi-structured interviews ranging from 30 minutes to 2 hours in length were conducted between November 2018 and August 2019. Results: Nine themes and four theme clusters emerged. The four theme clusters were: 1) "Overwhelmed by fear," which describes the experience of a patient close to death and the feeling of difficulty in understanding disorganized thinking; 2) "Anxious about not understanding the situation," which means that patients' sense of time and space were disordered in the ICU; 3) "Being deserted," which indicates the feeling of being separated from others and yourself; and 4) "Resistance to protect my dignity," which indicates that the dignity and autonomy of an individual in the patient's position at the ICU, are ignored. Conclusion: Nursing interventions are needed that would enable patients to maintain orientation and self-esteem in the ICU. In addition, healthcare providers need to provide information about the unfamiliar environment in the ICU in advance.

• The Korean Nurse
• /
• v.35 no.3
• /
• pp.61-76
• /
• 1996

The purpose of this study was to develop a nursing care delivery system which can provide patient focused care and increase satisfaction for both patients and nurses. This study was a quasi-experimental study to test the effectiveness of direct / indirect nursing care hours, patient satisfaction, nurse's job satisfaction, and the difference of the length of stay between model and control group. Control group data were collected from 100 patients who had lumbar disease in the neuro-surgical unit and model group data were from 66 patients who didn't have family residents from August 21, 1995 to February 29, 1996. Model unit was operated by modified PPM(Professional Practical Model) system for 3 months from December 1, 1995 to February 29, 1996. Working committee empowered nurses to make a decision to provide increased opportunities for autonomy, accountability, and control over the environment in which they deliver care. Satisfaction survey was done twice and analyzed by the SPSS program. The results of the study were as follows; 1. Mean direct nursing care hours of the model group was 90.47 minutes as it was 28.04 in the control group which shows significant statistical difference (t=-18.0, P=0.000). 2. Patient satisfaction to nursing care of in the model group was significantly higher than the control group (t=-6. 77, P=0.000) and it apples to the all subcategories, too. 3. Nurse's job satisfaction shows the significant increase in the model group than the control group(Z=-3.0405, p=0.0024). 4. There was no statistical difference between 2 groups in average length of stay except for the post-op patient which shows 5.4 days less in the model group. This study shows that patient satisfaction and nurse's job satisfaction were increased and length of stay was decreased in the model group. Even though this new developed Patient - Nurse Oriented Model can provide nursing with the opportunity to improve patient care to increase productivity and highly valued, it is very difficult to practice due to the limited nursing resources, higher acuity levels and nursing care cost. It is strongly recommended that the government needs to look at the unreasonable reimbursement system and recognize the nursing care costs to the high acuity level patients. Otherwise, make the patient responsible for the nursing care cost so that we can provide more efficient and patient focused care.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.163-180
• /
• 1978

Much of a person's energy is spent in the effort of becoming a productive member of to-day's complex society. This activity may cause tension, and chronic unrelieved tension is an influential factor in blood pressure elevation. The problem of this study was to identify manifest needs and self-actualization of patients with essential hypertension, and to analyse and compare their manifest needs and selt-actualization with the selected general characteristics of We, sex, religion, occupation and level of education with a control group of patients with normal blood pressure readings. The purpose was to contribute to the planning of nursing interventions toward reducing the impact of complex psycho-somatic factors on the anxiety of patients with essential hypertension. The instruments used included selected items from the Edwards (1959) Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS) as adapted by Hwang (1965) and from the Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) (Shostrom 1964, 1974) adapted by Kim and Lee (1977) to measure manifest needs and self-actualization. The convenience sample was chosen from 149 persons who presented themselves for general physical examinations at Ewha University Medical Centre and 41 patients diagnosed with essential hypertension at three general hospitals in Seoul during June 1 and August 31, 1977. Forty-nine persons from the Ewha group with blood-pressure readings exceeding 150/90 were added to the experimental group. Data were analysed by the S.P.S.S. computer programme using t-test and tests for statistical significance. Statistically significant findings were as follows: A. Blood Pressure and Manifest Needs. 1. with the exception of Autonomy, patients with hypertension had significantly high scores on all variables Abasement, Achievement, Affiliation, Aggression, Dominance, Emotionality, Exhibitionism and Sex. 2. When mean scores of normal persons were compared by age groups, normal persons had higher scores in the following order on Abasement (50's, 40's, 20's, 30's), Achievement (50's, 30's, 40's, 20's), Affiliation (50's, 40's, 30's, 20's), Dominance (50's, 40's, 40's, 20's) and Exhibitionism (30's, 50's, 40's, 20's). In each case, there was a significant difference between the first and last age group scores. 3. When the mean scores of normal persons were compared by sex, normal men had higher scores than women on Achievement, Affiliation, Aggression, Dominance, Exhibitionism and Sex. Male patients had higher scores than female patients on Achievement, Dominance, Exhibitionism and Sex, but female patients scored higher in Emotionality. 4. Normal persons had higher scores related to religion in the following order on Achievement (Buddhism, no religion, Christianity). Hyper tensive patients had higher scores on. Exhibitionism (no religion, Christianity, Buddhism). 5. Normal persons had higher scores related to occupation in the following order on Achievement and Exhibitionism (unemployed, office workers, teachless, businessmen), Emotionality (office workers, unemployed, businessmen, teacher) and Sex (office workers, unemployed, teachers, businessmen). Hypertensive patients had higher scores on Achievement and Aggression (teachers, businessmen, office worker, unemployed), Dominance and Exhibitionism (businessmen, teacher, of ace workers, unemployed) and Sex (teachers, office worker, businessmen, unemployed). 6. Normal persons had higher scores related to level of edification in the following order on Abasement, Emotionality and Autonomy (secondary school graduation, university). Hypertensive patients had higher scores on Abasement (no education, primary, university, secondary), Achievement (no education, secondary, university, primary) , Dominance (university, no education, secondary, primary), Exhibitionism (university, secondary, no education, primary), and Sex (university, secondary, primary, no education). B. Blood Pressure and Self_Actualization 1, Patients with hypertension had significantly lower scores on all variables. 2. Normal persons had higher scores related to age groups in the following order on Existentiality (20's, 30's, 40's, 50's). Hypertensive patients showed no significantly different scores. 3. Normal women had higher scores than men on Time Competence. Normal men had higher scores on Feeling Reactivity. Male patients had higher scores than women on Self-Actualizing Value and Self-Regard. 4. Normal persons ha 1 higher scores related to religion on spontaneity (Buddhism, no religion, Christianity). Hypertensive patients had higher scores on Time Competence and Nature of Man (Buddhism, Christianity, no religion). 5. Normal persons had higher scores related to occupation in the following order on Existentiality (teachers, office workers, businessmen, unemployed) and Self-Regard (unemployed, office workers, teachers, businessmen). Hypertensive patients showed no significantly different scores. 6. Normal persons had higher scores related to level of education in the following order on Existentiality and Self-Acceptance (university, secondary). Hypertensive patients had higher scores on inner-Director (university, secondary, no education, primary) and Existentiality (university, secondary, primary, no education). Recommendations for nursing interventions with hypertensive patients with emotional problems or low self-actualization were made. 1. The nurse should encourage the patient through her interactions with other members of the medical team to accept counselling and health education. 2. Through her therapeutic interpersonal relationships with the patient, the nurse should help him discover the causes of his emotional tension. 3. Through her health teaching with the family, the nurse should encourage them to participate with the medical team in the patient's therapeutic plan and in providing him with the minimum possible emotional support. 4. Through frequent counselling with the obsessive-thinking and inflexible patient, the nurse should reevaluate the patient's behaviour and her interventions. 5. Seriously ill patients should be given needed reeducation by members of the professional medical team.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
• /
• v.19 no.4
• /
• pp.292-295
• /
• 2016

Hospice and palliative care in Taiwan has been growing continuously. The 2015 Quality of Death index, as rated by the Economist Intelligence Unit, ranked Taiwan first among Asian countries and sixth in the world. In this review article, we highlight three particular areas that might have contributed to this success; the laws and regulations, spiritual care and research network. Finally, we discuss the future challenges and prospects for Taiwanese encounters. A systemic review was conducted with the keywords "hospice palliative care Taiwan" using PubMed. The passing of the "Natural Death Act" in 2000 set the example and established a landmark for patient autonomy in Asia; it guarantees the patient's right to request that medical staff do not resuscitate (DNR) them and to reject other futile medical treatments at the end of their life, thus reflecting the importance of palliative care from the policy perspective. In 2015, Taiwan passed another pioneering law entitled the "Patient Autonomy Act". This law states that a patient may decline medical treatment according to his/her own will. Taiwanese indigenous spiritual care was launched in 2000. It requires a Buddhist Chaplain to successfully complete a training program consisting of lectures, as well as bedside practicum before applying Buddhist practices to end-of-life care. The Japan-Korea-Taiwan research network was established for the purpose of enabling collaborative research for the East-Asian collaborative cross-cultural Study to Elucidate the Dying process (EASED) cohort. With consensus from the government and society to make it a priority, hospice and palliative medicine in Taiwan has been growing steadily.