• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.859-880
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• 2016

This study aims to establish an effective methodology for the detection of instant damages occurred in cable-stayed bridges with the measurements of cable vibration and structural temperatures. A transfer coefficient for the daily temperature variation and another for the long-term temperature variation are firstly determined to eliminate the environmental temperature effects from the cable force variation. Several thresholds corresponding to different levels of exceedance probability are then obtained to decide four upper criteria and four lower criteria for damage detection. With these criteria, the monitoring data for three stay cables of Ai-Lan Bridge are analyzed and compared to verify the proposed damage detection methodology. The simulated results to consider various damage scenarios unambiguously indicate that the damages with cable force changes larger than ${\pm}1%$ can be confidently detected. As for the required time to detect damage, it is found that the cases with ${\pm}2%$ of cable force change can be discovered in no more than 6 hours and those with ${\pm}1.5%$ of cable force change can be identified in at most 9 hours. This methodology is also investigated for more lightly monitored cases where only the air temperature measurement is available. Under such circumstances, the damages with cable force changes larger than ${\pm}1.5%$ can be detected within 12 hours. Even though not exhaustively reflecting the environmental temperature effects on the cable force variation, both the effective temperature and the air temperature can be considered as valid indices to eliminate these effects at high and low monitoring costs.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.22 no.12
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• pp.1213-1219
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to present a guideline to design a short-term manual measurement of environmental noise level, which is more economical and flexible, but less representative than long-term automatic measurement. The proposed guideline can provide the number of measurement times and the length of measurement term required to secure the extent of the representativeness. The data was collected at 4 sites located in Seoul and at 4 sites located outside of Seoul. The probabilities for five-minute equivalent noise levels, Leq, 5min, to stay in an error range from the quarterly representative noise level were used to evaluate sampling techniques. The probability analysis of the daytime period showed that the noise levels measured between 10 am and 2 pm and between 9 pm and 10 pm have the probabilities higher than 60 %. On the other hand, even for the same length of total measurement time, increasing the number of random samplings results in higher probabilities than increasing the length of measurement term.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.267-274
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• 2017

This is a non-experimental and retrospective study aimed at determining the effects of long-term hospitalization on the body mass index (BMI) and lipid metabolism in long-term hospitalized patients. The study subjects included 120 patients aged 40-65 years who were hospitalized for >3 months in 2 long-term care hospitals in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. In this study, the BMI and levels of total cholesterol, triglycerides (TG), high-density lipoprotein (HDL), and low density lipoprotein (LDL) at admission and 3 months after hospitalization were compared and analyzed, and the related changes over time were followed up. The general characteristics of the subjects were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and frequency analysis. In addition, logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the effects of the general characteristics on the BMI and Dyslipidemia. The changes in the BMI and blood lipid levels between admission and 3 months after hospitalization were analyzed using the paired t-test. The results showed that with regard to the changes in the blood lipid levels, the triglyceride levels significantly increased 3 months after hospitalization (p<.05). These findings imply that long-term hospitalization for care and rehabilitation after acute-phase treatment should be considered a potential high-risk factor for dyslipidemia, which could be prevented or alleviated by providing the patients with health education, including exercise and dietary education.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.3825-3828
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• 2014

Surgical outcomes of colorectal cancer treatment depend not only on good surgery and tumor biology but also on an optimal perioperative care. The enhanced recovery program (ERP) - a multidisciplinary and multimodal approach, or so called 'fast-track surgery' - has been designed to minimize perioperative and intraoperative stress responses, and to support the recovery of organ function aiming to help patients getting better sooner after surgery. Compared with conventional postoperative care, the enhanced recovery program results in quicker patient recovery, shorter length of hospital stay, faster recovery of gastrointestinal function, and a lower incidence of postoperative complications. Although not firmly established as yet, the enhanced recovery program after surgery could be of oncological benefit in colorectal cancer patients because it can enhance recovery, maintain integrity of the postoperative immune system, increase feasibility of postoperative chemotherapy, and shorten the time interval from surgery to chemotherapy. This commentary summarizes short-term outcomes and potential long-term benefits of enhanced recovery programs in the treatment of colorectal cancer.

• Proceedings of the Korea Contents Association Conference
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• 2017.05a
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• pp.471-472
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• 2017

There are 3,931,822 elderly who receives long-term care at home and 1,704,469 elderly who stay at long-term care facilities in those of 34,610,000 of +65 years old population in Japan; thus, the elderly people who need home care are 2.3 times more than facilities (2016).In the near future, the number of elderly people with a degree of daily life independence and dementia category II or more will increase to 4.7 million (12.8% of the elderly population). Therefore, the use of home-care robots is essential for the disaster evacuation of the overwhelming majority of those elderly who need home care and for of vitals checks to keep family, caregivers, and medical professionals informed to reduce the risk in chronic health conditions in welfare evacuation centers. This also helps to care for the caregivers who are caring for the elderly, and the introduction of home-robots to evacuation centers should receive prompt attention from our care-friendly society.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.298-305
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• 2010

Purpose: The objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence, incidence, and risk factors for postoperative surgical site infections (SSIs) after craniotomy. Methods: This study was a retrospective case-control study of 103 patients who had craniotomies between March 2007 and December 2008. A retrospective review of prospectively collected databases of consecutive patients who underwent craniotomy was done. SSIs were defined by using the Centers for Disease Control criteria. Twenty-six cases (infection) and 77 controls (no infection) were matched for age, gender and time of surgery. Descriptive analysis, t-test, $\chi^2$-test and logistic regression analyses were used for data analysis. Results: The statistical difference between cases and controls was significant for hospital length of stay (>14 days), intensive care unit stay more than 15 days, Glasgrow Coma Scale (GCS) score (${\leq}7$ days), extra-ventricular drainage and coexistent infection. Risk factors were identified by logistic regression and included hospital length of stay of more than 14 days (odds ratio [OR]=23.39, 95% confidence interval [CI]=2.53-216.11) and GCS score (${\leq}7$ scores) (OR=4.71, 95% CI=1.64-13.50). Conclusion: The results of this study show that patients are at high risk for infection when they have a low level of consciousness or their length hospital stay is long term. Nurses have to take an active and continuous approach to infection control to help with patients having these risk factors.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.30-71
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• 1999

There has been a dramatic increase in public awareness regarding dementia during recent years. However, dementia remains a family affair and patients do not receive adequate care in Korea. This study aims to assist patients and their caregivers by establishing Home and Community based Long-Term Care in a city. The data collected for analysis include five main categories: dementia prevalence, limitations of daily activities of patients, burden of caregivers, the services that patient's family want to utilize, the resources that handle dementia in the community. Major findings can be summarized as follows: 1)The prevalence rate of dementia for elderly people is 13.1 per 100 persons. Alzheimer's disease amount to 38.9% of dementia patients and vascular dementia account for 36.7% of them 2)Eight out of ten patients have mild dementia. Almost all patients have normal ADL. IADL, however, shows different picture. In every items of IADL, about 60% of patients reveals some limitations. 3)The proportion of patients who had medical diagnosis is as low as 20%. Families of patients think dementia as normal aging process and medical doctors in the community do not give special concern to dementia patients. 4)Caregivers does not have proper social support. They suffer from long care time, experience large obstacles in respect of health, daily living, and social activity. 5)Health center and Community welfare center have launched some programs-consultation, home-visiting nursing, day care center, voluntary force mobilization and so on-for dementia patients. But they do not perform expected roles and functions because of lack of skilled personnels and inadequate coordination of relevant organizations for dementia care. 6)Families of dementia patients prefer home helper and home-visiting nurse to hospitalization. For the future, however, demand for institution-based long-term services will increase. We develope community dementia care model based on above findings as follows: 1)Health center execute community cardiovascular control program for the prevention of vascular dementia. 2)Refer to epidemiologic characteristics of patients and preference of family, the most urgent task for dementia care in this city is to expand and organize Home and Community based Long-Term Care. 3)For the continuous and comprehensive care, care plan for a patient must be prepared. Case management team should be builded to prepare this plan and coordinate relevant resources. 4)Special long-term care unit for dementia will be needed in a near future. This unit should have multiple functions, such as day-care center, short stay facility, training center for relevant personnels, besides long-term nursing home considering effective care of dementia and efficient operation of the facility. 5)Voluntary workers deserve their due efforts. Incentive mechanisms must be developed to activate voluntary activities.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.218-223
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• 2000

Background: This study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of a parenteral nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agent for management of post-surgical pain and its effect on hospital stay and long-term surgical outcome. Methods: Total of 40 patients undergoing lumbar discectomy were randomly assigned to two groups, receiving either 1) 30 mg intravenous ketorolac upon surgical closure, every 6 hours for 36 hours, and morphine IV PCA (intravenous patient controlled analgesia), or 2) only morphine PCA. A blinded investigator recorded; the visual analog pain scores, total postoperative narcotic consumption, complications by morphine PCA, length of hospitalization (from surgery to discharge), and long-term outcome at 6 weeks. Results: The patients who received IV ketorolac and morphine PCA reported significantly lower visual analog pain scores than patients receiving only morphine PCA. Cumulative morphine doses were significantly lower in the ketorolac group (P<0.001). There was no significant difference between groups in the frequency of side effects related to morphine PCA. Mean length of hospitalization was longer for patients receiving only morphine PCA, but there was no statistical significance. Six weeks after surgery, four (20.0%) patients who received only morphine PCA suffered persistent back pain. In contrary, all those patients who received ketorolac were free of back pain at follow-up (P<0.05). Conclusions: These results suggest that intermittent IV bolus ketorolac, when used with opioid IV PCA is more effective than opioid IV PCA alone for postoperative pain following lumbar disc surgery. However, this strategy did not contribute to early discharge from hospital after lumbar disc surgery. The effect to long-term surgical outcome was not conclusive.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.308-315
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• 2012

Background: Long-term surveillance comparing satisfaction between the early experience of Nuss procedure vs. Ravitch procedure. Materials and Methods: A total of 100 patients that underwent surgical correction of a pectus excavatum between 2001 and 2004 and were followed for ${\geq}2$ years were included. Surveillance on the degree of satisfaction was performed using five-levels of the Likert scale and self-assessment scoring. Results: Nuss or Ravitch surgery was performed in 63 and 37 patients, respectively. The Nuss procedure required a shorter operation time and shorter hospital stay than the Ravitch procedure (p<0.001). The surveillance demonstrated that 17.6% of the Nuss group and 35.7% of the Ravitch group were not satisfied with the outcome of the surgery (p=0.072). The most common causes of dissatisfaction were redepression in the Nuss group (n=5) and incomplete correction in the Ravitch group (n=7). The multivariate analysis showed that reoperation and a high postoperative pectus index were significant risk factors for a low satisfaction score. Conclusion: The Nuss procedure had several advantages over the Ravitch procedure in the immediate postoperative period. However, the long-term satisfaction was determined by a complete correction without recurrence or need for re-intervention rather than by the operation type.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.154-161
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• 2021

This study analyzed the characteristics of the presence of multiple chronic diseases (MCDs) in older adults who transferred from long-term care hospitals (LTCHs) to emergency departments (EDs). According to the data from the national emergency department information system from January 1, to December 31, 2019, the number of older adults transferred from LTCHs to the ED due to chronic diseases was 13,608. Among those who MCDs, 79.9% were over 75 years old, and 74.0% were hospitalized for MCDs. The length of stay in the ED differed according to the presence of MCDs (P<0.001). As for the prevalence of MCDs, the odds ratio (OR) of the ED and in the hospitalized patients was high in Gwangju (OR 8.899 vs. 8.142) and Jeonbuk (OR 13.865 vs. 10.676). As described above, the characteristics of patients regarding the presence of MCDs varied according to age and region.