• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.48-58
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• 2004

Purpose: To identify the factors which are related to compensated low back pain disability. These include individual. workplace. economic and injury factors. Method: Data collection was performed at 13 office of Korea Labor Welfare Corporation and 29 hospitals from 23th June to 4th August 2003. This study used 212 workers with compensated low back pain. Result: From the bivariate analysis, industry kind, type of employment, rest schedule, Job control, compensation, payment of company, diagnosis, cause of occupational injury, duration of compensated low back pain, pattern of pain, operation, other injury is related to low back pain disability. From the multiple regression analysis, rest schedule, compensation, diagnosis, pattern of pain, other injury have statistically significant effect on the low back pain disability. Conclusion: In order to reduce low back pain disability, occupational rehabilitation nursing intervention is necessary to workers with compensated low back pain.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.17-25
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• 2006

Purpose: The goals of this research are to find out factors influencing the duration of work-related disability and to present implications for policies to prevent delayed recovery. Method: The subjects of this study were 238 workers who had been proved to be industrial disaster victims for occupational low back pain between January 1 2000 and December 31 2003. Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate the proportion of duration of disability associated with low back pain, and Cox proportional hazards analysis was used to identify factors predicting it. The model distinguished main symptom variables affecting acute(${\leq}90\;days$) and chronic phase of disability (>90 days). Result: Fifty percent of the workers had not recovered in 408 days. The results of Cox regression show that delayed duration of disability was predicted by diagnosis, pain radiation (in chronic phase), sex, the size and labor union of the workplace, scheduled rest, compensation from the company, and operation. Conclusion: Duration of disability associated with compensated low back pain is influenced not only by factors related to the company and compensation system but also by individual factors. Thus, future efforts to reduce duration of disability may need to take into account all these factors.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.5-10
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• 2009

Objective: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of unilateral decompression and pedicle screw fixation for the unilateral symptomatic foraminal stenosis. Methods: The study group comprises consecutive 16 patients who underwent unilateral decompression and bone cement augmented pedicle screw fixation from May 2003 to January 2006. The patients were evaluated by visual analog scale (VAS) for pain and the scoring system of the Japanese Orthopedic Association (JOA) for low back pain. The result of surgery was also evaluated with McNab's classification. Excellent or good outcome was considered as successful. The patients were followed at postoperative 1 month, 3 month, 6 month, and 1 year with standing AP and lateral films. Results: The average VAS and JOA score of the 16 patients were 7.8(range, 6-9) and 5.8(range, 3 - 10) before surgery and 2.2(range, 0 - 5)and 12.3(range, 9 - 15) at the time of last follow up. Both VAS and JOA score improved significantly after the surgery (p<0.05, t-test). All patients improved after the operation and no revision surgery was required. No metal failure or pseudoarthrosis was observed during the follow-up. The success rate was 87.5%. Conclusion: Our data suggest that unilateral decompression and pedicle screw fixation for the unilateral symptomatic foraminal stenosis is an effect method for obtaining satisfactory clinical outcome. Its possible advantage is shorter operation time and reduced surgical extent. We believe that the reduced stiffness of unilateral fixation was compensated by pedicle screw augmentation and interbody fusion.