• Journal of Korean Physical Therapy Science
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.475-489
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• 1997

Connective tissue massage(CTM, Bindegewebs massage) are developed and named by Mrs. Elizabeth Dicke, a German physical therapist. The CTM is used primarily for internal disorder such as myocarditis, coronary insufficiency, high blood pressure, functional stomach and intestinal disorders, inflamma-tion of the gallbladder, and hepatitis, arterial circulatory problems, venous disorders, headache, particularly trauma to the head, and some gynecologic disorder, etc. Which is performed with special stroking technique of the subcutaneous tissue of the trunk, extremities, and face. The mechanism of effectiveness of CTM is based on a viscerocutaneous reflex. The stroking stimulates the nerve end-ings of the autonomic nervous system. The impulses activated by stroking travel to the sympathetic trunk and the spinal cord and brain, which causes a change in reaction susceptibility. The most important for apply CTM is necessary to know the reflex zone (Head's zone, Mackenzie's zone and Dicke's connective tissue zone). Dicke's connective tissue zones are only found by the special dia-gnostic stroking. Because the connective tissue zones no discomfort when unmanipulated, and thus the patient is unaware of them. It is characterized by diagnostic stroking that causes a sharp pain in the tissue. As a general rule, all treatment are preceded by the basic stroke from the level of the coccyx to the first lumbar vertebra and each stroke is done three times. The right side is done first, then the left side.

• Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.195-201
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• 2020

Spinal epidural lipomatosis is a rare disorder characterized by overgrowth of fat in the extradural space, causing spinal stenosis with compression of the neural elements. This study reports on the effectiveness of Korean medicine treatment on a patient who was diagnosed on lumbar stenosis with lipomatosis. The patient was treated with Korean traditional medicine including pharmacopucture, acupuncture, Chuna manual treatment, and Korean herbal medicine, cupping. Numerical rating scale (NRS), Oswestry disability index (ODI), Euroqol five dimension (EQ-5D) index, lumbar range of motion were used as objective tools for evaluating the patient's progress. Back NRS decreased from 6 to 3. In the case of lower limbl radiation NRS, 5 was reduced to 3 upon discharge. EQ-5D index also increased from 0.751 to 0.766. For ODI, the score dropped from 26.67 to 24.44 on hospitalization. As a result, clinical improvements were found in a patient. In conclusion, this study shows that Korean medicine treatment can be considered as effective conservative care for spinal stenosis with lipomatosis.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.153-166
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• 2013

Yang deficiency pattern is a representative syndrome differentiation. This article is a study on to which categories of modern diseases yang deficiency is assigned by reference to modern clinical papers and the meaning of yang deficiency interpreted with a perspective of Korean Medicine and a modern perspective. Yang deficiency, yang qi deficiency, lack of yang qi and yang qi debilitation are the words found in "Nei Ching" and yang qi can be interpreted as something to warm, drive and arouse. Zhangzhongjing considered recovery or loss of Yang as the key to life in "Shanghanlun". Danxi proposed "Yang being liable to hyperactivity, Yin being insufficient" and emphasized pathological ministerial fire of Yang exuberance rather than physiological ministerial fire of Yang deficiency. Zhangjingyue proposed "Yang not being in excess, Yin being often deficient" and understood growth and decline of yin qi are all led by yang qi and put emphasis on true yin in addition to yang qi. Diseases of yang deficiency pattern are related with decline of metabolic level, hypofunction of internal secretion, disorder of immune function, disorder of automatic nerve system, sympathetic nerve inhibition, metabolic disorder of microelements, increase of cGMP, change of microcirculation, low speed of blood stream, kidney malfunction. Diseases related with kidney are sterility, polycystic ovary syndrome, spinal stenosis, edema, renal failure, IgA nephropathy, erectile dysfunction, nephritis, prostatitis, benign prostatic hyperplasia, decrease of adrenal cortical hormone by nephrotic syndrome, myelodysplastic syndrome. Disease related with heart are heart failure, arrhythmia, cardiomyopathy, atherosclerosis heart disease, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, pulmonary heart disease. Diseases related with spleen are irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis. Diseases related with liver are hypothyroidism, liver cirrhosis ascites, hepatitis B, chronic hepatitis, hepatic diabetes. Diseases related with lung are allergic rhinitis, cough variant asthma, bronchial asthma, pulmonary emphysema. And diabetes mellitus, metabolic syndrome, aplastic anemia, headache, encephalatrophy, Alzheimer's disease are also related with yang deficiency.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.36-43
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• 2011

Background: Nucleoplasty is a minimally invasive spinal surgery using a $Coblation^{(R)}$ technique that creates small voids within the disc. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of cervical nucleoplasty in patients with cervical disc disorder. Methods: Between March 2008 and December 2009, 22 patients with cervical disc disorders were treated with cervical nucleoplasty after failed conservative treatment. All procedures were performed under local anesthesia, and fluoroscopic guidance and voids were created in the disc with the $Perc^{TM}$ DC Spine $Wand^{TM}$. Clinical outcomes were evaluated by the Modified Macnab criteria and VAS score at preprocedure, postprocedure 1 month, and 6 months. Results: Six patients had one, eight patients had two and eight patients had three discs treated; a total of 46 procedures was performed. Mean VAS reduced from 9.3 at preprocedure to 3.7 at postprocedure 1 month and to 3.4 at postprocedure 6 months. There was no significant complication related to the procedure within the first month. Outcomes were good or excellent in 17/22 (77.3%) cases. Postprocedure magnetic resonance imaging was acquired in two patients after two months showing morphologic evidence of volume reduction of protruded disc material in one patient but not in the other. Conclusions: Percutaneous decompression with a nucleoplasty using a $Coblation^{(R)}$ technique in the treatment of cervical disc disorder is a safe, minimally-invasive and less uncomfortable procedure, with an excellent short-term clinical outcome.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.46-50
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• 2010

Spontaneous intracranial hypotension (SIH) is considered to be a very rare disorder. It is characterized by an orthostatic headache that is aggravated with the patient in the upright position and it is relieved by the patient assuming the supine position. SIH is caused by a spontaneous spinal cerebrospinal fluid leakage without the patient having undergone trauma, surgery or dural puncture or having any other significant medical history. An autologous epidural blood patch (EBP) is effective in relieving SIH. We report here on a case of SIH with cerebrospinal fluid leakage at the upper cervical vertebral level and the middle thoracic vertebral level. The points of leakage were identified by radionuclide cisternography, and this patient was successfully managed by injecting an EBP at each level of leakage.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.458-460
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• 2010

Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH), a disorder of the phagocytic system, is a rare condition. Moreover, spinal involvement causing myelopathy is even rare and unusual. Here, we report a case of atypical LCH causing myelopathy, which was subsequently treated by corpectemy and fusion. A 5-year-old boy presented with 3 weeks of severe neck pain and limited neck movement accompanying right arm motor weakness. CT scans revealed destruction of C7 body and magnetic resonance imaging showed a tumoral process at C7 with cord compression. Interbody fusion using cervical mesh packed by autologus iliac bone was performed. Pathological examination confirmed the diagnosis of LCH. After the surgery, the boy recovered from radiating pain and motor weakness of right arm. Despite the rarity of the LCH in the cervical spine, it is necessary to maintain our awareness of this condition. When neurologic deficits are present, operative treatment should be considered.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.231-234
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• 2011

Kummell's disease is a spinal disorder characterized by delayed post-traumatic collapse of a vertebral body with avascular necrosis. Although definitive treatment for Kummell's disease has not been established, it has been reported that percutaneous vertebroplasty or kyphoplasty has shown good results. However, these procedures are not recommended for severely collapsed vertebral bodies because of the risk of cement leakage or technical difficulties. Authors report a rare case of spontaneous reduction in vertebral height by the insertion of a working cannula into the vertebral body in Kummell's disease.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.65 no.9
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• pp.1557-1563
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• 2016

According to recent studies, poor sitting posture of the spine has been shown to lead to a variety of spinal disorders. For this reason, it is important to measure the sitting posture. We proposed a strategy for classification of sitting posture using machine learning. We retrieved acceleration data from single tri-axial accelerometer attached on the back of the subject's neck in 5-types of sitting posture. 6 subjects without any spinal disorder were participated in this experiment. Acceleration data were transformed to the feature vectors of principle component analysis. Support vector machine (SVM) and K-means clustering were used to classify sitting posture with the transformed feature vectors. To evaluate performance, we calculated the correct rate for each classification strategy. Although the correct rate of SVM in sitting back arch was lower than that of K-means clustering by 2.0%, SVM's correct rate was higher by 1.3%, 5.2%, 16.6%, 7.1% in a normal posture, sitting front arch, sitting cross-legged, sitting leaning right, respectively. In conclusion, the overall correction rates were 94.5% and 88.84% in SVM and K-means clustering respectively, which means that SVM have more advantage than K-means method for classification of sitting posture.

• Annals of Clinical Neurophysiology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.64-66
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• 2009

Acute longitudinal myelitis is a group of disorder characterized by multifocal, long-segmented inflammation of the spinal cord, rapidly evolving paraparesis, a sensory level on the trunk, and bilateral Babinski signs. We report a case of 30-year-old man with longitudinal myelitis extending to long segment of spinal cord. After 15 days of aggressive treatment with intravenous pulsed methylprednisolone for 5 days, motor and sensory functions of the lower extremities were almost recovered.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.43-47
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• 2014

Patients with neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1) are predisposed to develop central nervous system tumors, due to the loss of neurofibromin, an inactivator of proto-oncogene Ras. However, to our knowledge, only three cases of ependymomas with NF1 have been reported in the literature. The authors present a case of NF1 patient with a spinal cord ependymoma. She was referred for about half a year history of increasing numbness that progressed from her fingers to her entire body above the bellybutton. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed a relative-demarcated, heterogeneously enhanced mass lesion accompanied by perifocal edema in C5-7 level, a left-sided T11 spinous process heterogeneously enhanced mass in soft tissue, intervertebral disk hernia in L2-5 level, and widespread punctum enhancing lesion in her scalp and in T11-L5 level. The patient underwent C5-7 laminectomies and total excision of the tumor under operative microscope, and intraoperative ultrasonography and physiological monitoring were used during the surgery. Histopathologically, her tumor was found to be a ependymoma without malignant features (grade II in the World Health Organization classification). Therefore, no adjuvant therapy was applied. Following the operation, the patient showed an uneventful clinical recovery with no evidence of tumor recurrence after one year of follow-up.