• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.59-66
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• 2003

As a basic research material to make more efficient healthcare and health promotion for dental hygienists, this study intends to determine which factors may affect their awareness of occupational diseases. For this sake, this study attempted to investigate into a variety of literatures and data, and applied a questionnaire survey to 160 dental hygienists for about 5 months(from June to October 2003), who were all employed in domestic dental clinics or offices. As a result of analysis, this study can be concluded as follows: (1) The result of analyzing how dental hygienists recognized their occupational diseases showed that 'stiffness in muscle, neck or shoulder due to intensive use of specific physical regions' and 'stress resulting from the attributes of each task' reached the highest awareness(90.6%) of all, which was followed by 'lower eyesight due to detailed or even sophisticated tasks for many hours(65%)' and 'symptoms of ruptured disk due to standing tasks as dental hygienists do for many hours(62.5%).' (2) The result of analyzing how dental hygienists recognize their occupational diseases showed that their awareness averaged 7.28 points out of 14 points, which implies that their awareness of occupational diseases is not very high. Meanwhile, the result of examining how they recognize detrimental or harmful properties of given materials against human body showed that a majority of total respondents(74.4%) regarded given materials as detrimental to human body. (3) The result of examining how dental hygienists recognize their occupational diseases showed that a majority of total respondents(91.9%) identified their own occupational diseases. Many of total respondents(41.9%) pointed out that environmental improvement around workshop in each clinic or office should be foremost prerequisite to health and welfare for dental hygienists. Next, 34.4% of total respondents pointed out the necessity to perform in-house health diagnosis and examination on a regular basis, and 13.1% of total respondents thought it necessary to carry on healthcare education into harmful properties in the aspect of dental materiology, respectively.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.64-72
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• 1997

Purpose : The incidence of tuberculous meningitis in Korean children has been markedly decreased after 1980s, but this disease has still occurred with low rate. Therefore, it may be suspected that delayed diagnosis and treatment will be happened because of lacking of clinical experiences and indistinguishable other meningitis, so it is important to make early diagnosis and treatment of tuberculous meningitis concerning with the prognosis. In this aspect, we conducted study to concern and investigate sustainly about the diagnostic criteria, clinical characteristics, radiological findings, complications, and prognosis of typical or atypical tuberculous meningitis in children. Methods : Forty four children who were hospitalized and treated due to tuberculous meningitis in pediatric wards of Our Lady of Mercy Hospital, St. Holy Hospital, St. Vincent Hospital and Uijungbu St. Mary Hospital from January 1985 to June 1996 were included in this study. We reviewed medical records of these patients retrospectively. Results : 1) The tuberculous meningitis has occured continuosly since mid-1980s. The highest 2) The diagnosis was made by contact history of active tuberculous patients, positive tuberculin test, responses of antituberculous antibiotics and discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from CSF or other specimens. Among patients, 7 children(16%) were not vaccinated with BCG, and only 18 children(40%) were positive in tuberculin test. 3) The symptoms and signs of our patients on initial examinations were fever, vomiting, headache, lethargy, poor feeding, weight loss, neck stiffness, convulsion, abdominal pain and motor deficits. 4) The findings of initial CSF samples revealed leukocyte $239.5/mm^3$(mean) with lymphocyte predominant, elevated protein levels(mean;259.5mg%) and low sugar level(mean;40.7mg%). And the ratio of CSF/blood sugar was 0.407. But, atypical CSF findings were seen in 31.8% patients. 5) On brain imaging study, 34 out of 39 children had findings of hydrocephalus, basilar meningeal enhancement, infarction and subarachnoidal inflammations etc. On chest X-ray, the findings of miliary tuberculosis(34.1%), normal finding(29.5%), parenchymal infiltrations (11.4%) and calcifications(9.1%) were showed. 6) In neurological clinical stage, there were twenty-six children(59%) in stage 1, fourteen children(32%) in stage 2 and four children(9%) in stage 3. The late sequeles were encountered by 29.5% with mild and 4.6% with severe neurological injury. The most common neurological injury was quadriplegia and the mortality rate was 6.8%. 7) The SIADH was developed in 20 children(45.5%) after the 4th hospital day. Half of all SIADH patients were symptomatic. Conclusion : Tuberculosis meningitis is still an important extrapulmonary disease with high morbidity and mortality. Early diagnosis with clinical contact history of active tuberculosis and radiological imaging examinations and early treatments are essential in order to prevent and decrase the rate of late sequeles and death.