• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.28 no.1 s.69
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• pp.11-24
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• 2007

Objectives : Hemiplegic shoulder pain is one of the common sequelae of stroke. Although many different methods of treatment are applied, none have yet been proved to be effective. In this study we assessed the effectiveness of bee venom in patients with shoulder pain after stroke. Methods : This study was a double blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial. All subjects received either 0.6 ml bee venom injection (venom:saline = 1:10000) or 0.6ml physiological saline solution (placebo) at three acupoints. The effectiveness was assessed by visual analogue scale, pain rating score, Fugl-Meyer assessment and passive external rotation. Results : There were 24 patients in the venom group and 22 patients in the placebo group. The venom group5,hewed more effectiveness in VAS and PRS than the placebo group. Conclusions : This study suggests that bee venom injection has significant analgesic effect on hemiplegic shoulder pain. Further study based on multi-centers, larger population, and long term 1311ow-up is needed to confirm this suggestion.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.28 no.1 s.69
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• pp.35-41
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• 2007

Objectives : To gain better insights on the characteristics of stroke patients admitted to oriental medical hospitals, we analyzed the data of 363 consecutive patients with acute ischemic stroke from Hanbang Stroke Registry supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Korea. Methods : Subjects' enrollment was in the oriental medical hospitals of 3 universities located in the metropolitan region from October 2005 to October 2006. We assessed the subjects' general characteristics, risk factors, and etiology of stroke. Each patient's TOAST classification type was confirmed by two independent specialists. Those were small vessel occlusion (SVO), large artery atherosclerosis (LAA), cardioembolism (CE), stroke with other determined etiology (SOE), and stroke with undetermined etiology (SUE).Results 'The distribution of the subjects' general characteristics and risk factors for stroke were similar with result storm previous reports. However, in the TOAST classification, SVO was the major type occupying 78.5% in the total subjects, which is the highest share compared with other research with similar methods. These results imply that patients with more severe symptoms rarely visit oriental medical hospitals. Conclusion : Assuming that this research will continue adding patient's data continuously, this work will help us to understand the features of stroke patients at oriental medical hospitals, and contribute to expansion of the Korean Hanbang Stroke Data Bank.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.156-165
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• 2016

Objectives: This study reports on two cases of the clinical application of traditional Korean medicine on stroke patients with hemi-spatial neglect.Methods: We applied several traditional Korean medicine treatments and then evaluated the patients’ symptoms with Albert’s test, the clock-drawing test (CDT), the Catherine Bergego scale (CBS), and the numeric rating scale (NRS).Results: The scores of all of the scales showed improvement. In case 1, the Albert’s test score decreased from 2.5% to 0%, the CDT score increased from 6 to 10, and the CBS score decreased from 16 to 11. In case 2, the Albert’s test score decreased from 5% to 2.5%, the CDT score increased from 3 to 6, and the CBS score decreased from 23 to 16.Conclusion: We found that acupuncture, moxibustion, herbal medicine, and physical therapy appeared to be effective treatments for hemi-spatial neglect in these two stroke patients.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.66-76
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• 2023

Background: The aim of this study is to investigate the use of heart rate variability on a stroke patient with autonomic dysfunction and the effectiveness of Bunshimgi-eum. Case report: The patient showed autonomic dysfunction, including chest discomfort, 煩燥 (sweating, anxiety, insomnia, nausea, lightheadedness), and abdomen discomfort (dyspepsia, heartburn) after ischemic stroke. She was treated with a herbal medicine (Bunshimgi-eum) through complex Korean medicine treatment. The effect was evaluated using heart rate variability (HRV), Mini-Mental State Examination-DS (MMSE-DS), mean pulse rate, and subjective percentage of symptoms. After treatment, the HRV score, MMSE-DS score, and subjective percentage of symptoms improved, and the pulse rate decreased from the upper boundary value. Discussion: The results suggest that HRV may be useful in evaluating stroke patients with autonomic dysfunction and that Bunshimgi-eum is suitable for treatment.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.1274-1288
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• 2022

Objectives: The study investigated the effect of Korean medicine treatment on a hemiplegic patient with conscious and cognitive disorders due to hemorrhagic transformation after interventional reperfusion therapy of anterior circulation infarction. Case presentation: The patient was treated with acupuncture, moxibustion, cupping, and herbal medicine in combination with Western medicine and physical therapy. The effects on clinical symptoms were evaluated using the Manual Muscle Test (MMT), Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), Korean Mini-Mental State Examination (K-MMSE), Korean Nursing Delirium Screening Scale (Korean Nu-DESC), and Modified Bathel Index (MBI). After the treatment, the MMT grade increased from Gr.0-1 to Gr.0-3, the GCS score increased from 10 to 15, the K-MMSE score increased from 8 to 15, the Korean Nu-DESC score decreased from 3 to 1, night delirium disappeared, and the MBI score increased from 13 to 26. Conclusions: Complex Korean medicine treatments were effective for improving the clinical symptoms of hemorrhagic transformation after interventional reperfusion therapy for anterior circulation infarction in a patient with hemiplegia and conscious and cognitive disorders. However, further studies are needed.

• The Journal of the Society of Stroke on Korean Medicine
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.59-64
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• 2006

Objective : This study was aimed to investigated the warning signs and its relationship with the other characteristics in acute stroke patients. Methods : Three-hundred sixty three acute stroke patients were recuited in the oriental medical hospitals of 3 universities located in metropolitan region from October in 2005 to October in 2006. We evaluated their stroke type with brain MRI, their waring signs, and general characteristics such as age, sex, past history, risk factor, etc. Result : Of the 363 patient, 138(38%) patients were experience of warning signs. The frequency of Stress were found more in experience of warning signs than none of them. Warning signs were more common in Large Artery Atherosclerosis than in the other etiology. Conclusion : Although a concrete conclusion can hardly be drawn from this study, it reminds physicians of the importance of warning signs which their patients appeal. For the further investigation, it seems to be necessary to construct fundamental databases for stroke by increasing the number of patients and by examination into the etiology and location.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.967-975
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• 2019

Objective: To evaluate whether the combination of magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and ¹¹C-methionine positron emission tomography (¹¹C-MET PET) could increase accurate diagnostic sensitivity for non-enhancing supratentorial gliomas. Materials and Methods: Between February 2012 and December 2017, 109 patients with non-enhanced supratentorial lesions on contrast-enhanced MRI were enrolled. Each patient underwent MRS and ¹¹C-MET PET before treatment. A lesion was considered to be a glioma when either the MRS or ¹¹C-MET PET results reached the diagnostic threshold. The radiological diagnosis was compared with the pathological diagnosis or medical diagnostic criteria. Results: The sensitivity and specificity were 60.0% and 50.0% for MRS and 75.8% and 50.0% for ¹¹C-MET PET, respectively. Upon combining the two modalities, the sensitivity and specificity of the imaging-based diagnosis prior to surgery reached 89.5% and 42.9%, respectively. Statistically significant differences in the sensitivities were observed between the combined and individual approaches (MRS alone, 89.5% vs. 60.0%, p < 0.001; ¹¹C-MET PET alone, 89.5% vs. 75.8%, p = 0.001). However, no significant differences in specificity were observed between the combined and individual modalities. Conclusion: The combination of MRS and ¹¹C-MET PET findings significantly increases accurate diagnostic sensitivity for non-enhancing supratentorial gliomas without significantly lowering the specificity. This finding suggests the potential of the combined MRS and ¹¹C-MET PET approach in clinical applications.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.138-148
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• 2004

Objective : Insomnia is the disorder of initiation or maintenance in sleeping that results in daytime sleepiness and dysfunction, and it arises from multiple psychological, physiological and environmental factors. A number of stroke patients suffer from insomnia are classified as sleep disorder patients with physical illness. In addition, insomnia may have profound deleterious effects on the natural course of stroke. We are to assess the effectiveness of intradermal acupucture on stroke combined with insomnia. Methods : We recruited hospitalized patients with insomnia after stroke. Then, the subjects were allocated into a treatment group and a control group by randomization. The treatment group received intradermal acupuncture therapy at He-7(神門), EH-6(內關) correctly. However in control group, intradermal acupuncture were just attached to He-7(神門), EH-6(內關) without insertion. Treatment over time at first day and second day a various indexes were repeatedly checked such as sleep latency, total sleep time, sleep quality, condition on awakening, ability of concentration, morning sleepiness, Insomnia Severity Index, and Athens Insomnia Scale. In the second analysis, we divided the treatment group into a response and a non-response group by their response to intradermal acupuncture. With the acupuncture treatment, accompanied symptoms were checked Results : Among thirty two subjects, two of them were dropped out: One complained the pain from needle insertion, and the other underwent the change of his herbal medication. At baseline investigation with the residual 30 subjects, the control and the treatment group were assessed to have an equal comparability. In the treatment group, sleep latency, total sleeping time, a number of awakenings, sleep quality and ability of concentration showed improvement significantly compared with the control group. The non-response Group showed symptoms such as nausea and halitosis, belching and acid regurgitation, abundant expectoration, while Responder Group showed palpitation, oppressed feelings in chest and sleep disorder. Conclusions: The result of this clinical study suggests that the intradermal acupuncture at He-7(神門), EH-6(內關) is one of the effective treatments for the insomnia after stroke.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.27 no.3 s.67
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• pp.187-200
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• 2006

Objectives: Acupuncture has been applied in Asia for thousands of years, especially to rehabilitation after stroke. It has been reported that acupuncture increased cerebral blood supply and stimulated the functional activity of brain nerve cells shown by using brain imaging techniques. This study was to evaluate the effect of GB 34-GB 39 electro-acupuncture (EA) on regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in stroke patients and normal volunteers using single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). Methods: The study procedure was divided into two parts: patients and volunteers studies. For the patients study, ten ischemic stroke patients (3 males, 7 females, mean age $68.5{\pm}8.9$ years old) were selected. Baseline brain SPECT was done with triple head gamma camera (MultiSPECT3, Siemens, USA) after intravenous administration of 1,110 MBq of $^{99m}Tc-ECD$. Fifteen-minute EA at GB 34 and GB 39 were applied on the affected limb. The same dose of $^{99m}Tc-ECD$ was injected during the EA, and the second set of SPECT images wasobtained. Using the computer software (ICON 7.1, Siemens, USA), 3 SPECT slices (upper, middle, lower) surrounding the brain lesion were selected and each slice was divided into 10-16 brain regions. Asymmetry indexes (AI) were analyzed in each brain region. We regarded over 10% changes of AI between before and after EA as significance. For the volunteers study, 10 healthy human volunteers (5 males, 5 females, mean age $28.1{\pm}6$ years old) were selected. In the resting state, $^{99m}Tc-ECD$ brain SPECT scans were performed. On the 7th day after the resting examination, 15 minute EA was applied at GB 34 and GB 39 on the right side of the subjects. Immediately after EA, the second SPECT images were obtained inthe same manner as the resting state. Significant increases and decreases of rCBF after EA were estimated by comparing their SPECT images with those of the resting state using paired t statistics at every voxel, which were analyzed by statistical parametric mapping with a threshold of p = 0.01, uncorrected (extent threshold: k=100 voxels). Results: In stroke patients, six of the eight (75%) had significantly increased perfusion in post-acupuncture scans compared to their baseline state. In normal volunteers, GB 34-GB GB EA increased rCBF in both hemispheres including right ventral posterior cingulate (Brodmann area (BA) 23), left superior temporal, anterior transverse temporal (BA 22, 41), left parastriate, peristriate (BA 18, 19), right occipitotemporal, angular (BA 37, 39), left rostral postcentral, caudal postcentral and preparietal (BA 2, 3, 5). However GB 34-GB 39 EA decreased rCBF in the right hemisphere including triangular and middle frontal lobes. Conclusions: The results demonstrated that OB 34-GB 39 EA increased cerebral perfusion in ischemic stroke patients and increased rCBF grossly in temporal lobes of normal volunteers. It is also suggested that there may be a correlation between the GB meridian and the territory of the middle cerebral artery.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.109-119
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• 2009

Objectives: This study was aimed to clarity the relationship between the pattern of dampness-phlegm and metabolic syndrome in acute stroke patients. Methods: Three hundred fifty-nine subjects were recruited from the patients admitted to the Internal Medical Department at Kyunghee University Oriental Medical Center, Donggnk University Ilsan Oriental Medical Center, Kyungwon University Songpa Oriental Medical Center and Kyungwon University Incheon Oriental Medical Center from April 2007 to March 2008. We diagnosed dampness-phlegm by Oriental medical diagnosis and analyzed their characteristics with type of stroke, blood test result, Sasang constitution, lifestyle and metabolic syndrome. Results: I. On the demographic variables of the patients, the weight and body mass index, the rate of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, silent infarction were significantly higher in dampness-phlegm group than in the control. 2. There was no significant difference of stroke type between the dampness-phlegm group and the control. 3. According to the blood test, the dampness-phlegm group showed higher total cholesterol, triglyceride, fasting blood sugar and lower high density lipoprotein cholesterol than the control group with statistical significance. 4. According to the Sasang constitution distribution, the rate of Tae-Eum was significantly higher in dampness-phlegm group than in the control. 5. According to lifestyle, smoking and drinking were significantly lower in the dampness-phlegm group than in the control. Otherwise, exercise and dietary habits showed no significant difference between the two groups. 6. There were much more patients diagnosed with metabolic syndrome in the dampness-phlegm group than in the control. 7. Metabolic syndrome, silent infarction and obesity showed close relationship with dampness-phlegm pattern in multivariate analysis. Conclusions: According to the analysis, the relationship between the patterns of dampness-phlegm and metabolic syndrome in acute stroke patients were clarified. These results can be utilized in the future as a basis material.