• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.175-182
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the reliability and effectiveness of hyperbaric oxygen chamber on alcohol-induced oxidative stress and hangover. In order to evaluate them, 20 healthy adults were tested for blood and hangover stress tests. When an exponential change was examined after 3 interventions (hangover drink, hyperbaric oxygen chamber, and normal chamber as placebo effect) of 1 hour, the heart rate of subjects experiencing a hyperbaric oxygen chamber showed a statistically significant decrease (p < 0.001). The tests of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) as for exquisite hematology analysis, glucose, creatinine, and AST (aspartate aminotransferase) as well as ALT (alanine aminotransferase) used as liver-damage indicator show that the hyperbaric chamber has the effective effect. In the test of lactic acid, CRP (c-reactive protein), cortisol, and creatinine, the hyperbaric chamber shows much more excellent effect than the hangover drink and normal chamber as control groups. Further studies on hyperbaric oxygen chamber intervention including this study could be very helpful for improving lives of both the patients and healthy people.

• Journal of Industrial Technology
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• v.33 no.A
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• pp.9-14
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• 2013

Reliability plays a pivotal role in the development of medical instruments. A hyperbaric oxygen chamber, as a medical/health device, is known to help medical therapy for diversity of diseases through provision of high purity oxygen. The use of hyperbaric oxygen chamber is expected to increase in the future and study to examine reliability and safety is needed. We have performed reliability assessment for a newly developed hyperbaric oxygen chamber in this study. We first briefly discussed the system structure and mechanism. We then performed FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis) for the chamber. We drew major failure modes affecting the system performance and performed in depth analysis for measuring the expected effects.

• Journal of Industrial Technology
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• v.33 no.A
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• pp.3-8
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• 2013

Reduction of risk plays a pivotal role in the development of medical instruments. A hyperbaric oxygen chamber, as a medical device, is known to help medical therapy for diversity of diseases through provision of high purity oxygen. The use of hyperbaric oxygen is expected to increase in the future and study to rigorously examine reliability and safety is needed. We have performed risk assessment for a newly developed hyperbaric oxygen chamber in this study. We first briefly discussed the system structure and concept of risk assessment for the study. Based on the hazards identified, we performed preliminary hazard analysis for the chamber.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.9-15
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• 1972

Carbon monoxide poisoning is one of the most serious health problems in Korea, because we have been encountered with the highest incidence of CO poisoning in the world due to the unique heating system in home called 'ondal'. We opened Hyperbaric chamber unit in the Seoul National University Hospital last Jan, 1969. We have treated 848 patients as of Sept. 30., 1972, around 44 months period. We collected the informations on the environmental conditions of the place where CO intoxication actually occured by filling up the questionaire from 505 patients. The following findings were obtained. 1. Age distribution showed that the highest incidence was found in the younger age group between age of 10 to age of 29 in both sex. 2. Sex ratio of the patients was 1:1.14. 3. The socio-economic level of the patient was relatively low. 4. Housewife & housemaid were the major victims of the intoxication in the female patients & in the case of the male patient, occupational backgrounds were diverse. 5. Many patients from the middle class experienced the intoxication by sleeping at newly built room. 6. Many intoxication has been occured in the structure of houses where communicating doors are existing between living room & kitchen. 7. All findings obtained taught us again that CO poisoning is the serious by-product of the national fuel policy which put emphasis on the use of coal & socio-economic status is a very important parameter in this hazards.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.81-88
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• 2013

Purpose: The aim of this study is to investigate current status, indications, and complications of hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Methods: A retrospective investigation of patients who underwent hyperbaric oxygen therapy at a university medical center from September 2004 to August 2013 was conducted based on patients' medical records and results of an email survey for 99 emergency centers. Results: During the study period, a total of 233 patients underwent hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Indications for hyperbaric oxygen treatment of illness or injury were as follows: 1) 151 cases of acute carbon monoxide poisoning(65.4%), 2) flap wound management, including 42 cases(18.2%), 3) skin care transplanted, including 23 cases(10.4%), 4) Burger's disease, including 5 five cases(2.1%), respectively. Total application time$^*$ frequency was 1,088 and total time was 1,239 hours. Among 233 patients who underwent hyperbaric oxygen therapy, 32 patients(13.7%) had complications: 1) otalgia in 21 cases(9.0%), 2) mastoiditis?in six cases(2.6%), 3) hemotympanum in five cases(2.1%), respectively. There were only 8 emergency centers that currently had an operational hyperbaric oxygen chamber in 77 emergency centers(10.4%). Conclusion: Indications identified through this study showed difference from current indications worldwide. It seems necessary that physicians' perception regarding application of hyperbaric oxygen therapy for more indications be changed and improved. A hyperbaric chamber capable of providing respiratory assistance and intensive care is also needed. A good network for sharing treatment experiences and a specialized team for administration of hyperbaric oxygen therapy is also required.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.135-152
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• 1983

Emergency medical service is an important part of the health care delivery system, and the optimal allocation of resources and their efficient utilization are essentially demanded. Since these conditions are the prerequisite to prompt treatment which, in turn, will be crucial for life saving and in reducing the undesirable sequelae of the event. This study, taking the hyperbaric chamber for carbon monoxide poisoning as an example, is to develop a stochastic approach for solving the problems of optimal allocation of such emergency medical facility in Korea. The hyperbaric chamber, in Korea, is used almost exclusively for the treatment of acute carbon monoxide poisoning, most of which occur at home, since the coal briquette is used as domestic fuel by 69.6 per cent of the Korean population. The annual incidence rate of the comatous and fatal carbon monoxide poisoning is estimated at 45.5 per 10,000 of coal briquette-using population. It offers a serious public health problem and occupies a large portion of the emergency outpatients, especially in the winter season. The requirement of hyperbaric chambers can be calculated by setting the level of the annual queueing rate, which is here defined as the proportion of the annual number of the queued patients among the annual number of the total patients. The rate is determined by the size of the coal briquette-using population which generate a certain number of carbon monoxide poisoning patients in terms of the annual incidence rate, and the number of hyperbaric chambers per hospital to which the patients are sent, assuming that there is no referral of the patients among hospitals. The queueing occurs due to the conflicting events of the 'arrival' of the patients and the 'service' of the hyperbaric chambers. Here, we can assume that the length of the service time of hyperbaric chambers is fixed at sixty minutes, and the service discipline is based on 'first come, first served'. The arrival pattern of the carbon monoxide poisoning is relatively unique, because it usually occurs while the people are in bed. Diurnal variation of the carbon monoxide poisoning can hardly be formulated mathematically, so empirical cumulative distribution of the probability of the hourly arrival of the patients was used for Monte Carlo simulation to calculate the probability of queueing by the number of the patients per day, for the cases of one, two or three hyperbaric chambers assumed to be available per hospital. Incidence of the carbon monoxide poisoning also has strong seasonal variation, because of the four distinctive seasons in Korea. So the number of the patients per day could not be assumed to be distributed according to the Poisson distribution. Testing the fitness of various distributions of rare event, it turned out to be that the daily distribution of the carbon monoxide poisoning fits well to the Polya-Eggenberger distribution. With this model, we could forecast the number of the poisonings per day by the size of the coal-briquette using population. By combining the probability of queueing by the number of patients per day, and the probability of the number of patients per day in a year, we can estimate the number of the queued patients and the number of the patients in a year by the number of hyperbaric chamber per hospital and by the size of coal briquette-using population. Setting 5 per cent as the annual queueing rate, the required number of hyperbaric chambers was calculated for each province and for the whole country, in the cases of 25, 50, 75 and 100 per cent of the treatment rate which stand for the rate of the patients treated by hyperbaric chamber among the patients who are to be treated. Findings of the study were as follows. 1. Probability of the number of patients per day follows Polya-Eggenberger distribution. $$P(X=\gamma)=\frac{\Pi\limits_{k=1}^\gamma[m+(K-1)\times10.86]}{\gamma!}\times11.86^{-{(\frac{m}{10.86}+\gamma)}}$$ when$${\gamma}=1,2,...,n$$$$P(X=0)=11.86^{-(m/10.86)}$$ when $${\gamma}=0$$ Hourly arrival pattern of the patients turned out to be bimodal, the large peak was observed in $7 : 00{\sim}8 : 00$ a.m., and the small peak in $11 : 00{\sim}12 : 00$ p.m. 2. In the cases of only one or two hyperbaric chambers installed per hospital, the annual queueing rate will be at the level of more than 5 per cent. Only in case of three chambers, however, the rate will reach 5 per cent when the average number of the patients per day is 0.481. 3. According to the results above, a hospital equipped with three hyperbaric chambers will be able to serve 166,485, 83,242, 55,495 and 41,620 of population, when the treatmet rate are 25, 50, 75 and 100 per cent. 4. The required number of hyperbaric chambers are estimated at 483, 963, 1,441 and 1,923 when the treatment rate are taken as 25, 50, 75 and 100 per cent. Therefore, the shortage are respectively turned out to be 312, 791. 1,270 and 1,752. The author believes that the methodology developed in this study will also be applicable to the problems of resource allocation for the other kinds of the emergency medical facilities.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Marine Engineers Conference
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• 2011.06a
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• pp.223-223
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• 2011

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.359-366
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• 1974

The authors collected epidemiological and clinical informations on 1,307 CO patients from the questionairefilled by attendants of patients and from the clinical records kept in the hospital. All patients were treated by hyperbaric oxygenation at the Hyperbaric Chamber Unit of Seoul National University Hospital during 5 years, from January, 1969 to December, 1973. The following findings were obtained. 1. Female showed higher incidence rate than male. The highest incidence rate was observed in the age group of 15-29 years in both sex. 2. The most important variable influencing the recovery of the patients was the starting time of treatment. It was evident that earlier the starting time, shorter the recovery time. 3. Duration of admission was within 5 days in 57.1 percent of the admitted cases and 76.1 percent of them was discharged within 8 days. 4. As the complications, pulmonary edema, bronchopneumonia and trophic changes were observed. Also the neurological disorders were found. 5. The fatality rate followed by the hyperbaric oxygenation was 1.07 percent.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.71-77
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• 2018

In this paper, considering the oxygen sensitivity and preference pattern of the patient, the profile of the oxygen therapy of the individual is specified. And, we design a three-compartment, single compartment oxygen chamber that automatically adjusts the oxygen pressure according to the specified profile. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is a method of providing patients with 100% oxygen higher than atmospheric pressure for therapeutic purposes. However, there is a disadvantage that the ear pain is caused by the pressure difference depending on the individual. Based on the embedded system, the proposed system creates a patient-tailored oxygen therapy profile by DB of patient's preference patterns and treatment records of oxygen therapy. If only the patient's name is entered, the oxygen chamber system can adjust the oxygen pressure automatically according to the profile pattern to maximize the oxygen treatment effect.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.13-18
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• 1980

The ultimate goal of treatment of carton monoxide poisoning is to promote dissociation of carboxyhemoglobin and to maintain arterial $PO_2$ above 50mmHg throughout the course of treatment to protect vital organs from damage caused by hypoxia. The hyperbaric chamber designed and manufactured for this purpose has obviousely made an enormous contribution and yet has several handicaps to be overcome by any means. These handicaps are: the financial impact to purchase the chamber (especially in a small, remote community), an extra manpower requirement to operate the device, limitation in the capacity of the chamber (one man type), and the possible hazard of oxygen intoxication and dysbarism. The primary objective of this study is to develope a new therapeutic measure as an alternative to the hyperbaric chamber when it is not available or contraindicated. The effect of intestinal perfusion with hydrogen peroxide has been studied by many investigators and was known to be an excellent way of extrapulmonary oxygen supply. the advantage of this method will include; 1) much more amount of oxygen is delivered to the tissue than one would expect from 100% saturation with oxygen at 1 ata, 2) the procedure is simple and most economical, 3) neither sophisticated equipment nor extra manpower is required. As a study preliminary to the clinical application, authors conducted a series of experiment to observe the effect of hydrogen peroxide enema on dissociation of carboxyhemoglobin in intoxicated rabbit blood. Using an animal gas chamber, 20 rabbits were exposed to CO gas of 6,000 ppm for 60 minutes. Ten rabbits of control group were given 10cc of warmed normal saline solution by reactal perfusion and for the other 10 of the experimental group, the same amount of 1% $H_{2}O_{2}$ solution was given by the same way. Two blood specimens were drawn from each rabbit: the first one immediately following the exposure and the second one after rectal perfusion, about 30 minutes after the first sampling. The result was as follows; 1) The decrease in carboxyhemoglobin concentration during the first 30 minutes in the control and experimental group were $18.18{\pm}4.49%\;and\;23.03{\pm}4.13%$ respectively shelving the significant difference (p<0.05) between the two groups. 2) Hemoglobin and hematocrit value showed no significant difference between two groups and not altered significantly by intestinal perfusion with $H_{2}O_{2}$.