• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.318-323
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• 2016

Background: Multidisciplinary team care (MTC) is a collaborative approach to treatment plan and ongoing care. We aimed to evaluate the clinical effect of MTC on the regulation of chronic kidney disease-mineral and bone disorder (CKD-MBD) complications in dialysis patients. Methods: This retrospective observational study was approved by the institutional review board. Among patients who have undergone dialysis at admission, the patients admitted to the nephrology ward were allocated to MTC group, and the others to usual care (UC) group. The MTC group had collaborative care by nephrologists, nurses, pharmacists, and nutritionists. The endpoints were the regulation of corrected calcium (cCa) and phosphate (P), the percent of patients in target level of cCa-P product ($cCa{\times}P$), and the prescription rate of non-calcium based P-binders. Results: A total of 163 patients were included from January to December 2009. A significant difference was shown in the percentage of patients in target $cCa{\times}P$ level at admission (MTC vs. UC, 81.40% vs. 91.67%; P = 0.038), but there was no significant difference at discharge. During admission, the cCa and P levels of patients in only UC group were significantly changed. In addition, compared with UC group, patients in MTC group were more likely prescribed appropriate P-binders, when they had higher $cCa{\times}P$ levels than $55mg^2/dL^2$ (P <0.001). Conclusion: It was found that MTC had beneficial effect on improving the regulation of CKD-MBD and the appropriate phosphate binder uses. Therefore, application of the MTC is anticipated to enhance quality of clinical care in chronic diseases.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.182-190
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• 2016

Purpose: This study aimed to establish a large-scale database of patients with gastric cancer to facilitate the development of a nationalcancer management system and a comprehensive cancer control policy. Materials and Methods: An observational prospective cohort study on gastric cancer was initiated in 2010. A total of 14 cancer centers throughout the country and 152 researchers were involved in this study. Patient enrollment began in January 2011, and data regarding clinicopathological characteristics, life style-related factors, quality of life, as well as diet diaries were collected. Results: In total, 4,963 patients were enrolled until December 2014, and approximately 5% of all Korean patients with gastric cancer annually were included. The mean age was $58.2{\pm}11.5$ years, and 68.2% were men. The number of patients in each stage was as follows: 3,394 patients (68.4%) were in stage IA/B; 514 patients (10.4%), in stage IIA/B; 469 patients (9.5%), in stage IIIA/B/C; and 127 patients (2.6%), in stage IV. Surgical treatment was performed in 3,958 patients (79.8%), endoscopic resection was performed in 700 patients (14.1%), and 167 patients (3.4%) received palliative chemotherapy. The response rate for the questionnaire on the quality of life was 95%; however, diet diaries were only collected for 27% of patients. Conclusions: To provide comprehensive information on gastric cancer for patients, physicians, and government officials, a large-scale database of Korean patients with gastric cancer was established. Based on the findings of this cohort study, an effective cancer management system and national cancer control policy could be developed.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.147-156
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• 2015

Objectives : This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of Korean medicine for a thoracolumbar compression fracture. Methods : We searched six Korean databases (DBPIA, Korean Studies Information Service System, Oriental Medicine Advanced Searching Integrated System, National Digital Science Library, Research Information Sharing Service, KoreaMed) (up to June 2015) and the Journal of Korean Acupuncture and Moxibustion Society. Unpublished studies were also searched. Clinical research, other than case reports involving less than 10 patients, were eligible. The effectiveness and safety of Korean Medicine was analyzed. The 'Risk of Bias' was assessed using the 'Risk of Bias' assessment tool for non-randomized studies as well as the Cochrane Collaboration's 'Risk of Bias' tool. Results : We found 12 before-after studies (374 patients). There was no randomized trial. All studies combined at least three different types of Korean medicine treatments. The period of treatment varied between less a week and 154 days. All the included studies reported improvements in pain, functional disability related to lower back pain, global assessment, and benefits in the compression ratio of a fractured vertebrae and skin temperature measured by digital infrared thermal imaging in comparison with the baseline. However, all studies had a high risk of bias and three studies reported mild adverse events. Conclusions : There is no randomized trial for the role of Korean medicine for patients with a thoracolumbar compression fracture. The effectiveness and safety of Korean medicine for this population remains unclear. Findings in this review are seriously biased due to observational design and a high risk of bias included in the studies. Future high-quality randomized trials are warranted.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.157-165
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• 2015

Objectives : This study was designed to compare the effect of Shinbaro pharmacopuncture treatment and Jakyakgamcho Decoction pharmacopunture treatment in patients with low back pain caused by traffic accidents. Methods : This study was conducted on 64 cases of patients with low back pain caused by traffic accidents, who were admitted to Bucheon Jaseng Hospital of Korean Medicine from May 3rd, 2015 to October 31th, 2015. The patients were divided into two groups : Shinbaro pharmacopuncture treatment group and Jakyakgamcho Decoction pharmacopunture treatment group. We measured the efficacy of treatment with a numerical rating scale(NRS) and Oswestry disability index(ODI). The NRS which was checked at pre-tretment and after 4th and 8th treatments, and the ODI which was checked at pre-treatment and after 8th treatment were collected and analyzed. Results : In both Shinbaro and Jakyakgamcho Decoction group, NRS and ODI decreased significantly. However there was no statistically significant difference between the groups. At the 4th treatment, However, the Jakyakgamcho Decoction group showed a greater decrease in NRS with a statistically significant difference. Conclusions : In a short period of time, Jakyakgamcho Decoction Pharmacopuncture is more efficient than Shinbaro pharmacopuncture in reducing the pain of patients with low back pain caused by trafficic accidents, but in the end there is no statistically significant difference between the groups.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.103-110
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• 2011

Objectives : The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect and adverse events of Gamiwolbigachul-tang on the changes of body composition and musculoskeletal pain in overweight patients. Methods : A total of 28 patients with overweight patients who were complaining musculoskeletal pain were treated with Gamiwolbigachul-tang more than 4 weeks between January 2011 and August 2011 in Kyung Hee University Oriental Medical Hospital were observed. We have evaluated the efficacy of treatments by measuring the changes of body composition (Body weight, Body mass index, Skeletal muscle mass, Body fat mass and Waist hip ratio) and musculoskeletal pain. The 28 patients were analyzed according to the distribution of sex, age, body compostition and musculoskeletal pain. Results : 1. There were statistically significant changes on Body weight and BMI in 28 patients after 4 weeks of treatment. 2. Gamiwolbigachul-tang had effect on reducing Body fat mass rather than Fat free mass. 3. There were statistically significant changes on musculoskeletal pains such as lower back pain, knee pain after treatment. 4. There were few side effects except those common complications such as insomnia(3 patients), palpitation(2 patients) and indigestion(1 patients), which did not have effects on everyday living. Conclusions : These results suggest that Gamiwolbigachul-tang will be beneficial for overweight patients with musculoskeletal pain, having both effectiveness and safety.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.5-20
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• 1985

The purpose of this study was to assess the value-of post-operative treatment in terms of nursing care in the allevation of pain. More specifically, the effects of supportive touch and patient education were examined. On the date before each patient's operation, the Bevels of anxiety, depression and affiliation were examined. The post-operative treatment was adminis. tered after an initial measurement of the patient's fain, according to the experimental category for the three days following the operation. On the final day, the level of anxiety and depression were again measured. The subjects of this study were 138 patient from the general surgical and gynecological wards in H university Hospital in Seoul. The study was conducted over a three-month period from June 24, 1984 to September 18, 1984. All patients had undergone laparatomies. Various standard instruments were used to measure the pain, anxiety, depression and affiliation levels. for pain, 5 grate Simple Descriptive Scale, and the Mclachlan four-range Observational Pain Scale were employed. For anxiety and depression, respectively the Spielberger State Anxiety Inventory and Beck Depression Inventory (B.D.I.) were used. Lastly, the affiliation was determined by the Mehrabian Affiliation Scale. The outcome of the research was as follows: 1. The first hypothesis concerning the existence of lower pain levels of Experimental Group A and Experimental Group B than the pain levels of Control Croup C was not supported. 2. The second hypothesis concerning the existence if lower anxiety levels of Experimental Group A and Experimental Group B than the anxiety levels of Control Group C was supported at the level of F=3.58 (p=.03). 3. The third hypothesis concerning the existence of lower depression levels of Experimental Group A and Experimental Group B than the depression levels of Control Group C was not supported. 4. The fourth hypothesis concerning the existence of different levels of pain in accordance with the levels of affiliation in Experimental Group A was not supported. 5. A positive correlation did exist between pain and anxiety after surgery (r=.34, p=.0001). Thus, the fifth hypothesis was supported. 6. A positive correlation did exist between pain and depression following surgery(r=.36, p=.0001). Thus, the sixth hypothesis was supported. Based on the above results, it was found that supportive touch and patient education either through human sources or via tape recorder do influence the anxiety of a patient after surgery, that a Positive correlation between pain, anxiety and deparession exist, that affiliation does not alter the influence of supportive touch, and that the graph on which pain levels were depicted indicates the possibility of development even if the effects of supportive touch did not reach a meaningful level. Thus it can be concluded that patient education, regardless of its form, is essential for the patient after surgery and that supportive touch, when reasonably modified and supplemented, can be an effective method of alleviating pain.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.87-106
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• 2018

Objective: The objective of this study is to examine the association between process quality of inpatient care and risk-adjusted, thirty-day potentially preventable hospital readmission (PPR) rates. Data Sources/Study Setting: This was an observational cross-sectional study of nonfederal acute-care hospitals located in two states California and Florida, discharging Medicare patients with a principal discharge diagnosis of heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, or pneumonia January through December 31, 2007. Data were obtained from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project State Inpatient Database of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Hospital Compare database, and the American Hospital Association Annual Survey of Hospitals. Study Design: The dependent variable of this study is condition-specific, risk-adjusted, thirty-day potentially preventable hospital readmission (PPR). 3M's PPR software was utilized to determine whether a readmission was potentially preventable. The independent variable of this study is hospital performance for process quality of inpatient care, measured by hospital adherence to recommended processes of care. We used multivariate hierarchical logistic models, clustered by hospitals, to examine the relationship between condition-specific, risk-adjusted, thirty-day PPR rates and process quality of inpatient care, after taking clinical and socio-demographic characteristics of patients and structural and operational characteristics of hospitals into account. Findings: Better performance on the process quality metrics was associated with better patient outcome (i.e., low thirty-day PPR rates) in pneumonia, but not generally in two cardiovascular conditions (i.e., heart failure and acute myocardial infarction). Practical Implication: Adherence to the process quality metrics currently in use by CMS is associated with risk-adjusted, thirty-day PPR rates for patients with pneumonia, but not with cardiovascular conditions. More evidence-based process quality metrics closely linked to 30-day PPR rates, particularly for cardiovascular conditions, need to be developed to serve as a guideline to reduce potentially preventable readmissions.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.94-101
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• 2009

In this paper, we propose design of hardware based on a high speed digital signal processor (DSP) and a field programmable gate array (FPGA) for real-time suppression of fixed pattern noise (FPN) using hardware neural networks (HNN) in cooled infrared focal plane array (IRFPA) imaging system FPN appears a limited operation by temperature in observable images which applies to non-uniformity correction for infrared detector. These have very important problems because it happen serious problem for other applications as well as degradation for image quality in our system Signal processing architecture for our system operates reference gain and offset values using three tables for low, normal, and high temperatures. Proposed method creates virtual tables to separate for overlapping region in three offset tables. We also choose an optimum tenn of temperature which controls weighted values of HNN using mean values of pixels in three regions. This operates gain and offset tables for low, normal, and high temperatures from mean values of pixels and it recursively don't have to do an offset compensation in operation of our system Based on experimental results, proposed method showed improved quality of image which suppressed FPN by change of temperature distribution from an observational image in real-time system.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.186-194
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• 2001

The operational meso-scale short range NWP system was developed for Cheju Regional Meteorological Office located at Cheju island, Korea. The Central Meteorological Service Center, KMA has reported the information on numerical weather prediction every 12 hours. But this information is not enough to determine the detail forecast for the regional meteorological office because the terrain of the Korean peninsula is very complex and the resolution of the numerical model provided by KMA headquarter is too coarse to resolve the local severe weather system such as heavy rainfall. LAPS and MM5 models were chosen for three-dimentional data assimilation and numerical weather prediction tools respectively. LAPS was designed to provide the initial data to all regional numerical prediction models including MM5. Synoptic observational data from GTS, satellite brightness temperature data from GMS-5 and the composite reflectivity data from 5 radar sites were used in the LAPS data assimilation for producing the initial data. MM5 was performed on PC-cluster based on 16 pentium CPUs which was one of the cheapest distributed parallel computer in these days. We named this system as Halla Short Range Prediction System (HSRPS). HSRPS was verified by heavy rainfall case in July 9, 1999, it showed that HSRPS well resolved local severe weather which was not simulated by 30 km MM5/KMA. Especially, the structure of rainfall amount was very close to the corresponding observation. HSRPS will be operating every 6 hours in the Cheju Regional Meteorological Office from April 2000.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.225-233
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• 2010

Wind power density distribution over the North Korea territory was investigated by using 30-year wind observations at 27 meteorological stations. The mean annual wind power density over North Korea turned out to be 58.6W/$m^2$, which corresponds to the wind power class of 1. The wind power density shows a seasonal variation, having the highest density in spring and the lowest in summer. In particular, the wind power density in summer is about a half of that in spring. The diurnal variation of the wind power density shows that the highest and lowest densities occur in the afternoon and between 3 and 6 am in local time, respectively. The most potential wind energy generation regions are the Gaema Plateau in the central region, the northeast part of Hamgyeongbuk-do, the south coast of Pyongan-do and the west coast of Hwanghae-do. The mean annual wind power density in Changjin is 151.2W/$m^2$, which is equivalent to the class of 3. In Ryongyon, the annual mean wind power density is 102.4W/$m^2$, which belongs to the class of 2.