• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.215-218
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• 2012

Objective: Traumatic epidural hematomas (EDHs) in children are a relatively unusual occurrence. The cause and outcome vary depending on period and reg ion of study. The aims of this analysis were to review the cause and outcome of pediatric EDHs nowadays and to discuss outcome-related variables in a large consecutive series of surgically treated EDH in children. Methods: This is a retrospective review of 29 patients with surgically treated EDHs between Jan 2000 and February 2010. Patients' medical records, computed tomographic (Cl) scans, and, if performed, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were reviewed to define variables associated with outcome. Variables included in the analysis were age, associated severe intracranial injury, abnormal pupillary response, hematoma thickness, severity of head injury (Glasgow Coma Scale score), parenchymal brain injury, and diffuse axonal injury. Results: The mean (SO) age of the patients was 109 months (0-185 months). Most of the injuries with EDHs occurred in traffic accident (14 cases, 48.2%) and followed by slip down in 6 cases and falls in 6 cases. There were one birth injury and one unknown cause. EDHs in traffic accidents occurred in pedestrians hit by a motor vehicle, 9 cases; motorbike and car accidents, 5 cases and bicycle accidents, 1 case. The locations of hematoma were almost same in both sides (left side in 15 cases). Temporal lobe is the most common site of hematomas (13 cases, 44%). The mean size of the EDHs was 18 mm (range, 5-40 mm). Heterogeneous hematomas in CT scans were 20 cases (67%). Two patients were referred with unilateral or bilateral dilated pupil(s). There was enlargement of EDH in 5 patients (17%). All of them were heterogeneous hematomas in CT scans. Except for 4 patients, all EDHs were associated with skull fracture(s) (87%). There was no case of patient with major organ injury. CT or MRI revealed brain contusion in 5 patients, and diffuse axonal injury in one patient The mortality was zero, and the outcomes were excellent in 26 and good in 2 patients. None of the tested variables were found to have a prognostic relevance. Conclusion: Regardless of the EDH size, the clinical status of the patients, the abnormal pupillary findings, or the cause of injury, the outcome and prognosis of the patients with EDH were excellent.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.75-82
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• 2010

Purpose: In Korea, trauma is the $3^{rd}$ most common cause of death. The trauma treatment system is divided into pre-hospital and hospital stages. Deaths occurring in the pre-hospital stage are 50% of the total death, and 20% of those are deaths that are preventable. Therefore, the purpose of our study is to calculate the preventable death rates caused by trauma in our current pre-hospital system, to analyze the appropriateness of the treatment of traumatized patients and to draw a conclusions about the problems we have. Methods: The study was done on traumatized patients who expired at the emergency department from January 1, 2005, to December 31, 2009, at the Korea University Medical Centers in Anam, Guro and Ansan. The data on the patients were reviewed retrospectively based on characteristics, conditions on admission and trauma severity. The patient's RTS (revised trauma score) and ISS (injury severity score) was calculated. Preventable death rate was calculated by TRISS (the trauma score-injury severity score). Results: A total of 168 patients were enrolled. All patients were intubated and underwent CPR. Of the total, 72% patients were male, and traffic accidents were the most common form of trauma (52.4%), falls being second (28.6%). Head injury, solitary or multiple, was the most common cause of death (55.4%). Thirty-eight (38, 22.6%) deaths were preventable. The 22.6% preventable death rate consisted of 15.5% potentially preventable and 7.1% definitely preventable deaths. Based on a logistic regression analysis, the relationship between the time intervals until transfusion and imaging and death was statistically significant in the hospital stage. In the pre-hospital stage, transit time from the site of the injury to the hospital showed a significant relationship with the mortality rate. Conclusion: One hundred sixty-eight (168) patients died of trauma at the 3 hospitals of Korea University Medical Center. The TRISS method was used to calculate the preventable death rate, with a result of 22.6%. The only factor that was significant related to the preventable death rate in the pre-hospital stage was the time from injury to hospital arrival, and the time intervals until transfusion and imaging were the two factors that showed significance in the hospital stage. Shortening the time of treatment in the field and transferring the patient to the hospital as quickly as possible is the most important life-saving step in the pre-hospital stage. In the hospital stage, the primary survey, resuscitation and diagnosis should proceed simultaneously.

• Korean Journal of Digital Imaging in Medicine
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.63-69
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• 2011

Table strapis patient fixture for securing the patient movements and falls. if it designed to measure the abdominal circumference and used as an indicator of dose selection at CT scan. it will prevent the overexposure of dose without degradation of image quality and efficiently manage dose of each type of body to technician to deal with CT. First, in order to compare the dose used in CT image and qualitative characteristics. reference image is obtained by examining the abdominal phantom in same conditions with the hospital 120 kVp, 200 mAs, D-Dom (Dynamic Dose Of Modulation). SNR, PSNR, RMSE, MAE, CTDIvol of CT images are compared with reference image. for comparing with reference image, the image that Umbilicus level image of Abdomen CT is stored in the PACS were used. For comparison, the top 12 o'clock portion of the air drawn from the same ROI was measured. CTDIvol, mAs, etc. In order to analyze the characteristics of the image, by measuring the length of the umbilicus circumference, pattern of the dose was analyzed. by using the analyzed perimeter and dose information, To be identified visually, fixed band that scale marked were produced. Use them, If the length of circumference of less than 60 cm 100 mAs, Case of 61~80 cm 120 mAs, Case of 80~100 cm 150 mAs, more than 100 cm 200 mAs, dose selection based on the perimeter, the image was applied. by compare analyzed with the Reference Image, image quality was assessed. by compare with existing tests that equally 200 mAs applied, How much was confirmed that the dose reduction. 1. Depending on the Abdominal circumference, the average PSNR(dB) of the image that differently dose applied was 45.794. 2. Comparing with existing test. the dose of scan that adjusted the mAs depending on the circumference was decreased about 40%. SNR and PSNR of the image that obtained by adjusting the standard mAs based on dose modulation were not much different. Therefore, By choosing a low mAs. dose reduction can be obtained. and the dose selection method that measured Abdominal circumference using a fixed band can protect the overexposure and uniformly apply dose of each type of body to technician to deal with CT.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.354-359
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• 2008

Background: Warfarin is used as an anticoagulant and it is mainly excreted by the liver metabolism (the R-form is mainly metabolized by cytochrome p450 3A4, and the S form by cytochrome p450 2C9). Rifampin is usually used for tuberculosis or endocarditis, and it is a representative drug that induces the CYP families, including 3A4 and 2C9. The anticoagulation effect of warfarin decreases through the increased metabolism that's due to the induction of enzymes, and this iscaused by rifampin when patients take these two medicines together. No one has suggested appropriate guidelines regarding this drug interaction even though an appropriate adjustment of warfarin's dosage is needed. We examined the drug interaction in patients who received warfarin-rifampin combination therapy according to the time interval, and the factors affecting drug interaction were analyzed. Based on the data, we tried to determine the clinically available warfarin dosage guidelines before and after taking this drug combination. Material and Method: We reviewed the OO University Hospital anticoagulation service team's follow up sheets that were filled out from Jan '1998 to Sep 2006 for the patient who took warfarin - rifampin combination therapy (n=15). Result: The average INR of all the patient before rifampin administration was $2.25{\pm}0.52$ $(mean{\pm}SD)$, and that value for the first 100 days after rifampin administration was $1.98{\pm}0.28$. The p value for these two sets of data showed no correlation (paired t-test, p>0.05). The average INR of all the patient before rifampin cessation was $2.19{\pm}0.34$, and the value after rifampin cessation was $2.49{\pm}0.43$. The p value of these two showed correlation (paired t-test, p<0.05) but the average INR falls between the therapeutic INR range. Conclusion: The warfarin dose adjustment equation of before and after warfarin-rifampin combination therapy was derived based on this study's results because the warfarin dosage adjustment of the anticoagulation service team was considered appropriate.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.41-51
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• 2000

Clinical observation was made on 44 cases of stable thoracolumbar compression fracture that were confirmed through simple x-ray and neurological examination. They were hospitalized and treated by acupuncture and moxibustion, bed rest, herb medicine and physical therapy. If necessary, patient was given an enema. The results obtained are as follows. 1. The patient distribution ratio, in regard to sex, was shown to be 1: 13.7 for males to females. In regard to age, it was shown that people in their 60's was the most predominant case, followed by people in their 70's, 80's, 50's and 40's, respectively. 2. In regard to contributing factors, it was observed that accidental falls were most frequent, followed by reasons unknown, repetitive lifting of heavy objects, overlaboring and bruise in that order. 3. In regard to duration of illness before treatment, it was found that treatment within 1 week was most predominant, followed by over 4 weeks, and 1-2 weeks, respectively. 4. With regard to the duration of hospitalization, hospitalization within 2 weeks was found to be most predominant, followed by 2-4 weeks. 5. In regard to the level of the affected vertebral body; The affected vertebral bodies distributed between T3 to L5 except for T7; T12 was found to be most predominant, followed in turn by L1 and L5. 6. In regard to the number of affected vertebral bodies, 2 was the most frequent followed by 1 and 3, in that order. The average of the number of affected vertebral bodies was observed to be 2.8 and single vertebral body compression fracture was shown to have no clinical and statistical difference as compared with multiple vertebral body compression fractures. 7. In regard to the grade of the seriousness of symptoms, it was found that Grade IV was most predominant, followed by Grade III. 8. With regard to signs at the first medical examination, low back pain was seen in the highest number, and followed in order by gait disturbance, flank pain, flexion-extension disturbance, disturbance of rotation to right or left, and bowel dysfunction. 9. Concerning the effect of treatment, good results were most predominantly seen, and 95.5% of total patients showed fair results. 10. The duration of admission treatment due to the grade of clinical symptoms was as follows; In the case of the Grade IV, it was observed that within 2 weeks was most predominant and for Grade III was 2-4 weeks. It was also found that the grade of clinical symptoms was not in proportion to the duration of admission treatment. 11. In regard to the result of treatment due to the grade of clinical symptoms; It was found that in the case of Grade IV, within 2 weeks was most predominant, and for Grade III, it was found to be 2-4 weeks. 12. Intestinal obstruction was shown in 50% of total patients; In the case of duration of constipation, more than 1 week was found to be most predominant, followed by 2 and 4 days respectively. 13. With regard to the treatment of intestinal obstruction, using acupuncture and moxibustion, herb - medicine and enema together were found to be most effective. 14. Intestinal obstruction was mostly seen in the case of Grade IV.

• Perspectives in Nursing Science
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.35-45
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• 2006

In Korea, about 8.3% over aged 65 are suffering from Alzheimer's disease or other type of dementia. Among dementia-related behaviors, wandering is the one of strongest factors on burden and stress of caregivers. On Lee and Kwon's report with community living persons with dementia, upto 85% of caregivers reported wandering as a problem. Wandering is a frequently encountered problem in communities and long-term care facilities, but it is among least understood dementia. related behavior. Despite the prevalence of wandering, its significant adverse outcomes, and the increase in persons with dementia in Korea, no systematic research has been conducted in Korea. The purpose of this study is to review on literature related to wandering behavior among persons with dementia. The specific topics related to wandering are included: definition, the prevalence of dementia and wandering behavior, the influencing factor on wandering, outcomes of wandering behavior, and the measurement method. Wandering is defined as "aimless walking" and "Meandering, aimless or repetitive locomotion that exposes one to harm and is incongruent with boundaries, limits, or obstacles". Wandering is viewed as a problematic behavior, however, it has to be understood as need-driven compromised behavior. For example, wandering may be an expression of searching for familiar person and/or place. Recently, in Korea, there is an effort for establishing the therapeutic environment for elders who are wanderers in long-term-care facilities. Cognitive impairment of persons with dementia is found to be a consistent factor on wandering behavior through many national and international studies. The adverse outcomes of wandering are serious problem in persons with dementia as well as their caregivers. The adverse outcomes include falls, fractures, getting lost, use of restraints, or even death. In fact, wandering is one of the major reasons for a patient to be institutionalized. For measurement of wandering behavior, two methods are broadly used: observation using stop watch, and survey form. A revised instrument of the Korean version of Algase wandering scale (K_RAWS) is established the psychometric properties (Son, Song, & Lim, 2006) demonstrating valid and reliable instrument in measuring wandering behavior among persons with dementia who are residing in communities. K_RAWS has a 39 items with six subscales including persistent walking, repetitive walking, spatial disorientation, eloping behavior, negative outcome, and mealtime impulsivity. In conclusion, studies including the prevalence of wandering behavior and predictive factors on wandering should be conducted to understand wandering clearly before developing any types of intervention.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.77-82
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• 2007

Purposes: There have been many efforts to improve the service of emergency centers. In spite of these, no evidence is showing any landmark advancement of emergency services, especially in the hospital stage, exists. We need some efficient standard criteria to evaluate emergency service in the hospital stage, and a useful method might utilize the overcrowding index. We want to know the change in the overcrowding index at a regional emergency center after injury area administration. Injury area means an area in which only an assigned duty physician manages patients with injuries such as those from traffic accidents, falls, assualts, collisions, lacerations, amputations, bums, intoxication, asphyxia, drowning, animal bites, sexual assualts, etc. Methods: We started to operate an injury area in our emergency department from late 2004, and from January to June in 2004 and in 2005, we collected patients' data, age, sex, assigned department, and result from hospital order communication system to figure out overcrowding indices and result indices. We found the daily number of patients, the turnover rate, the admission rate, the ICU admission rate, the emergency operation rate, the ED stay duration, and the ED patient volume to be overcrowding indices. Also we found the withdrawal rate, the transfer rate, and mortality to be result indices. We compared these indices between 2004 to 2005 by using a t-test. Results: There was a significant increase in the daily number of visiting patients in 2005, overcrowding indices, such as the turnover rate, the admission rate, the ICU admission rate, and the emergency operation rate, also showed statistically significant increases in 2005 (P<0.001). As for the result indices, there was a noticeable decrease in the number of withdrawals (11.77/day in 2004 to 4.53/day in 2005). Conclusion: Operating an injury area in a mildly overcrowded local emergency center is beneficial. Evaluating the effect of operating an injury area and it's impact on hospital finances by conducting a similar study analyziing patients for a longer duration would be valuable.

• Journal of Computing Science and Engineering
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.40-50
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• 2012

Increase in the number of older people due to demographic changes poses great challenges to the social healthcare systems both in the Western and as well as in the Eastern countries. Support for older people by formal care givers leads to enormous temporal and personal efforts. Therefore, one of the most important goals is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of today's care. This can be achieved by the use of assistive technologies. These technologies are able to increase the safety of patients or to reduce the time needed for tasks that do not relate to direct interaction between the care giver and the patient. Motivated by this goal, this contribution focuses on applications of acoustic technologies to support users and care givers in ambient assisted living (AAL) scenarios. Acoustic sensors are small, unobtrusive and can be added to already existing care or living environments easily. The information gathered by the acoustic sensors can be analyzed to calculate the position of the user by localization and the context by detection and classification of acoustic events in the captured acoustic signal. By doing this, possibly dangerous situations like falls, screams or an increased amount of coughs can be detected and appropriate actions can be initialized by an intelligent autonomous system for the acoustic monitoring of older persons. The proposed system is able to reduce the false alarm rate compared to other existing and commercially available approaches that basically rely only on the acoustic level. This is due to the fact that it explicitly distinguishes between the various acoustic events and provides information on the type of emergency that has taken place. Furthermore, the position of the acoustic event can be determined as contextual information by the system that uses only the acoustic signal. By this, the position of the user is known even if she or he does not wear a localization device such as a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.217-222
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• 2012

Purpose: Diaphragmatic rupture following trauma is often an associated and missed injury. This report is about our experience with treating traumatic diaphragmatic rupture (TDR). Methods: From January 2007 to September 2012, 18 patients who had a diaphragmatic rupture due to blunt trauma or penetrating injury underwent an operation for diaphragmatic rupture at our hospital. We retrospectively reviewed their medical records, including demographic factors, initial vital signs, associated injuries, interval between trauma and diagnosis, injured side of the diaphragm, diagnostic tools, surgical method or approaches, operative time, herniated organs, complications, and mortality. Results: The average age of the patients was 43 years, and 16 patients were male. Causes of trauma included motor vehicle crashes (n=7), falls (n=7), and stab wounds (n=5). The TDR was right-sided in 6 patients and left-sided in 12. The diagnosis was made by using a chest X-ray (n=3), and thorax or upper abdominal computed tomography (n=15). Ten(10) patients were diagnosed within 12 hours. A thoracotomy was performed in 8 patients, a video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery in 4 patients, a laparotomy in 3 patients, and a sternotomy in one patient. Herniated organs were the omentum (n=11), stomach (n=8), spleen and colon (n=6), and liver (n=6). Eighteen diaphragmatic injuries were repaired primarily. Seven patients underwent ventilator care, and two of them had pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome. There were no operative mortalities. Conclusion: Early diagnosis and surgical treatment determine the successful management of TDR with or without the herniation of abdominal organs. The surgical approach to TDR is chosen based on accompanying organ injuries and the injured side.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.110-124
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• 2007

Currently, we have seen sudden increase of demand for emergency medical services by reason for high-speed economic development increase of traffics, etc. in this society. Consequently the government enforced & operated emergency medical system in 1991 as a link of more positive countermeasure against it, but many problem; still remain in reality. In particular, the regional emergency medical center designated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare falls short of our expectations for its essential role by the reason of such as insufficiency in professional manpower and institutions concerned in small-scale hospital, matters with transportation system, preference of large hospital, etc. Therefore, this study was conducted grasp for the actual conditions of emergency medical system based upon literature research & the preceding studies and interview research the motive of coming hospital, satisfaction & understand to the subject of 150 persons of patients and their guardians who used regional emergency center of Pusan National University Hospital, thereby examining & analysing the cause of emergency room overcrowding by non-emergency cases, one of the problem; enumerated from preceding studies. The main result of this study is as follows. First the actual condition of non-emergency patients coming hospital for examining overcrowding of emergency medical center showed that, of the patients who used the emergency medical center, non-emergency patients accounted for 49.3%, which acted as the main cause of delaying medical care for emergency cases, cases of which medical person or first-aid man decided to come hospital accounted for 36.1 %, thereby suggesting essential need for re-education & wide public information to even the professional manpower besides patients & guardians for their using emergency medical system. Second, as the result of researching patient acknowledgement with reference to their using emergency medical center, the rate of their giving right answer is no more than 60%, which means that non-emergency cases' using as such is due to the shortage of their knowledge of the said emergency medical center, which suggests us that wider P.R for emergency medical system to common people who may be one of the patients of it at any time is still in need. Third, the result of researching for finding out a future remedy of emergency medical system showed that the users who know well of the way of using emergency medical center had relatively high satisfaction of it, ones who have lesser knowledge of it lower satisfaction and users who feel in need of emergency specialized manpower feel the necessity of public information of emergency medical information center(1339) at the same time. The finding of examining the subject of study, in conclusion, showed that the degree of the patients & their guardians' understanding of emergency medical system is lower and the medical persons concerned also had no distinct difference in their understanding of it from the common people's, which suggests us for extensive enforcement of systematic education and public information in aspect of the government via various media for the purpose of effective operation of emergency medical center.