• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.89-97
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• 2013

Purpose: This retrospective study was performed to identify the clinical characteristics of influenza B infection and compare to influenza A infection. Methods: Medical records of patients diagnosed with influenza using a multiplex PCR test, admitted to Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, during the 2011-2012 influenza season were analyzed. Clinical and laboratory characteristics of influenza B patients were investigated and compared with those of influenza A patients. Results: A total of 145 influenza patients were enrolled during this study period. Among these, 66 and 78 patients were diagnosed with influenza A and B, respectively, and 1 patient was diagnosed with co-existing influenza A and B. Cough (88.2%), rhinorrhea (77.1%) and sputum (60.4%) were the most common symptoms among these influenza patients, and most were diagnosed with upper respiratory infection (31.9%) or lower respiratory infection (49.3%). In comparison to influenza A patients, influenza B patients were older ($4.7{\pm}4.1$ years vs. $3.3{\pm}2.5$ years, P=0.016), and the number of fever days before hospitalization were longer (3.0 days vs. 2.5 days, P=0.043). While sore throat (10.3% vs. 1.5%, P=0.039) and vomiting (20.5% vs. 6.1%, P=0.012) were more common in influenza B patients than in influenza A patients, other clinical and laboratory characteristics were not significantly different between the two groups. Conclusions: No significant differences in clinical and laboratory perspectives were manifested in influenza A and B infections. Preventive measures should be emphasized over treatment in influenza B due to prolonged fever duration before admission.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.28-34
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• 2005

Objective : This study is performed to compare older with younger groups about clinical characteristics and overall outcome of treatments for the intracranial aneurysms. Methods : We retrospectively investigated 633 patients with cerebral aneurysms who were admitted to our institute from January 2000 to May 2004. The authors divided the patients of cerebral aneurysm into two groups, one the third, fourth decades and the other eighth, ninth decades, analyzed clinical characteristics and overall outcome of treatments. Results : There were 57 patients [9.0%] under 39years old and 58 patients [9.2%] over 70. The female to male sex ratio was 0.5 : 1 in the younger group[YG] and 7.3 : 1 in the older group[OG], showing a female predominance with increasing age. In the YG, aneurysms were found in anterior communicating artery[A-com] [44.8%], middle cerebral artery [31.0%]. In the OG, aneurysm of posterior communicating artery [30.1%] was most common followed by that of A-com [26.9%]. More smokers and alcoholics were found in the YG. Older age was related to poor Hunt-Hess grade, Fisher's grade on admission, high incidence of unruptured aneurysms, and endovascular surgery. There was a higher prevalence of hypertension, intraventricular hematoma, hydrocephalus, and rebleeding in the preoperative state in the OG and postoperative complications including hydrocephalus, subdural fluid collection, and systemic complications. Overall outcome was poorer with advancing age [p=0.01]. Conclusion : The patients with aneurysms in the YG have distinct characteristics compared to those in the OG. Because of a good clinical grade on admission, a thin subarachnoid clot, and Low incidence of perioperative complications, the overall outcomes of the young patients were better than those of the old patients.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.292-300
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• 2021

Background: Medication adherence in hypertension is the most important to control blood pressure and prevent major complications. The purpose of this study was to identify factors affecting medication adherence and to examine the relationship between medication adherence and blood pressure control in Korea. Methods: This study used data from the 7th Korea national health and nutrition examination survey (2016-2018) of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. We selected 4,063 hypertensive patients from the data. And we choose socio-demographic, health behavior, healthcare utilization, and severity characteristics as hypertensive patient characteristics. Results: Of the patients with hypertension, 92.3% had shown adherence to medication as of 2016-2018 and shows variation according to the characteristic of patients. The cases with male, under 50 years old, urban area, single household, unmet medical services, less than 5 years of hypertension duration, no comorbidities (diabetes mellitus, myocardial infarction) showed significantly low medication adherence. After adjusting for confounders, adherent patients tended to have lower current systolic blood pressure (β=-10.846, p<0.001) and diastolic blood pressure (β=-5.018, p<0.001) than nonadherent patients. And, adherent patients increased the control odds of blood pressure compared with nonadherent patients (odds ratio, 3.02; 95% confidence interval, 2.21-4.12). Conclusion: This study confirmed that adherence to antihypertensive drugs was effective in controlling blood pressure. In order to more actively manage hypertensive patients at the national level, it is necessary to make an effort to improve the medication compliance of nonadherent groups, such as early-diagnosis patients, young patients under 50 years of age, and patients living alone.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.117-124
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• 2018

Purpose: This study was to analyze clinical and epidemiological characteristics of elderly patients who were admitted to the emergency department (ED) due to falls by separating male and female. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the fall patients aged 65 years or older from the data of the in-depth surveillance study of injured patients visit to the ED under the supervision of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) from 2011 to 2016 by separating male and female. Results: A total of 361,588 elderly fall patients were analyzed and, among them, 14,429 (37.3%) were males and 24,208 (62.7%) were females. Male and female showed similar frequency of damage happening season. However, they showed falling accident mostly on winter. The time of injury occurrence is mostly from 12:00 to 18:00 with 4,949 (34.3%) male and 8,564 (35.4%) female. Most falls occurred in daily activities, accounting for 7,614 (52.8%) in males and 14,957 (61.8%) in females, respectively. Unintentional damage accounted for the most part and 7,395 (51.2%) of male and 15,343 (63.4%) of female were injured indoors. Head and neck were the most common site of injuring, with 8,392 (58.2%) in males and 7,851 (32.4%) in females. According to ED examination outcomes, most of the patients were discharged, while the majority of the hospitalized patients were admitted to the general patient room. Conclusions: The elderly falls occurred mostly from 12:00 to 18:00, during winter and to elderly women. Also, they happened unintentionally indoors in everyday life, mostly. Proved clinical, epidemiological characteristics from this research will be used as useful indicator at validity research of development of prevent program of falling accident for elderly people.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.53 no.11
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• pp.965-970
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• 2010

Purpose: The life expectancy of patients with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) type I is generally considered to be less than 2 years. Recently, with the introduction of proactive treatments, a longer survival and an improved survival rate have been reported. In this study, we analyzed the natural courses and survival statistics of SMA type I patients and compared the clinical characteristics of the patients based on their survival periods. Methods: We reviewed the medical records of 14 pediatric patients diagnosed with SMA type I during a 9-year period. We examined the demographic and clinical characteristics of these patients, calculated their survival probabilities, and plotted survival curves as on the censoring date, January 1, 2010. We also compared the characteristics of the patients who died before the age of 24 months (early-death, ED group) and those who survived for 24 months or longer (long-survival, LS group). Results: The mean survival time was $22.8{\pm}2.0$ months. The survival probabilities at 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, 24 months, and 30 months were 92.9%, 92.9%, 76.0%, 76.0%, and 65.1%, respectively. Birth weight was the only factor that showed a statistically significant difference between the ED and LS groups ($P$=0.048). Conclusion: In this study, the survival probabilities at 2 years were far greater than expected. Because of the limited number of patients and information in this study, the contribution of improved supportive care on longer survival could not be clarified; this may be elucidated in larger cohort studies.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.896-901
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• 2007

Objectives : This study aimed to evaluate the characteristics of patients with single infarction and multiple infarctions. Method : We studied inpatients who were admitted from 2005/10/1 to 2007/3/30 at the KyungHee University Oriental Medical Center (KOMC) Department of Cardiovascular & Neurology (stroke center). We sorted small vessel occlusion patients and evaluated general characteristics of the patients along with the characteristics of single and multiple infarction patients. Result : We evaluated 262 inpatients, and did not find any significant difference in age, hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, diet, exercise, homocysteine, or Sasang constitution between single infarction and multiple infarction. However, there were more significant associations with patients' smoking and stress with multiple infarctions than single infarction. Conclusion : From this study we could roughly grasp the characteristics of Small Vessel Occlusion patients and evaluated the characteristics of patients with multiple infarction. However, due to the special circumstance of the KOMC inpatients it is difficult to generalize our results; further multiple center research with a larger study group is needed.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.63 no.5
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• pp.412-416
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• 2007

Background: The possibility of developing pulmonary tuberculosis usually increases with increasing age. Therefore, the incidence of endobronchial tuberculosis in older people may increase. We evaluated the clinical characteristics in patients with endobronchial tuberculosis above the age of 70 years. Methods: We enrolled 74 patients (12 males and 62 females; mean age $64.6{\pm}16.2 $years) that were diagnosed with endobronchial tuberculosis from March 2003 to July 2006 at Gyeongsang University Hospital. We retrospectively evaluated the clinical characteristics of endobronchial tuberculosis for patients 70 years or older (older group) and for patients below the age of 70 years (younger group). Results: The number of patients in the older group was 41 (55%). Cough was the most common symptom in the two groups of patients and dyspnea on exertion was more common in the older group of patients than in the younger group of patients (31.7% vs. 12.1%). The actively caesating type of disease was more common in the younger group of patients than in the older group of patients (66.7% vs. 39%). The edematous type of disease was more common in the older group of patients than in the younger group of patients (53.7% vs. 27.2%) (p<0.05). Tracheal and main bronchial involvement of lesions were more common for the younger group of patients than for the older group of patients (30.3% vs. 9.7%) (p<0.05). Conclusion: Endobronchial tuberculosis was commonly observed in patients older than 70 years and this group of patients had some clinical characteristics that were different from the younger group of patients.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.32-36
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• 2008

Purpose: The major complication of acute organophosphate (OP) poisoning is respiratory failure as a result of cholinergic toxicity. Many clinicians find it difficult to predict the optimal time to initiate mechanical ventilation (MV) weaning, and as a result have tended to provide a prolonged ventilator support period. The purpose of this study is to determine any clinical predictors based on patients characteristics and laboratory findings to assist in the optimal timing of mechanical ventilator weaning. Methods: We reviewed medical and intensive care records of 44 patients with acute OP poisoning who required mechanical ventilation admitted to medical intensive care unit between July 1998 and June 2007. Patient information regarding the poisoning, clinical data and demographic features, APACHE II score, laboratory data, and serial cholinesterase (chE) levels were collected. Base on the time period of MV, the patients were divided into two groups: early group (wean time < 7 days, n = 28) and delayed group (${\geq}$ 7 days, n = 16). Patients were assessed for any clinical characteristics and predictors associated with the MV weaning period. Results: During the study period, 44 patients were enrolled in this study. We obtained the sensitivity and specificity values of predictors in the late weaning group. APACHE II score and a reciprocal convert of hypoxic index but specificity (83.8%) is only APACHE II score. Also, the chE concentration (rho = -0.517, p = 0.026) and APACHE II score (rho = 0.827, p < 0.001) correlated with a longer mechanical ventilation duration. Conclusion: In patients with acute OP poisoning who required mechanical ventilation, the APACHE II scoring system on a point scale of less than 17 and decrements in cholinesterase levels on 1-3 days were good predictors of delayed MV weaning.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.390-398
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• 2013

Objective : We determined whether the relationship between the neuropsychological performance of patients with mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) and their psychopathological characteristics measured by disability evaluation are interrelated. In addition, we assessed which psychopathological variable was most influential on neuropsychological performance via statistical clustering of the same characteristics of mild TBI. Methods : A total of 219 disability evaluation participants with mild brain injury were selected. All participants were classified into three groups, based on their psychopathological characteristics, via a two-step cluster analysis using validity and clinical scales from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and Symptom Checklist-90-revised (SCL-90-R). The Korean Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (K-WAIS), Korean Memory Assessment Scale (K-MAS) and the Korean Boston Naming Test (K-BNT) were used to evaluate the neurocognitive functions of mild TBI patients. Results : Over a quarter (26.9%) experienced severe psychopathological symptoms and 43.4% experienced mild or moderate psychopathological symptoms, and all of the mild TBI patients showed a significant relationship between neurocognitive functions and subjective and/or objective psychopathic symptoms, but the degree of this relationship was moderate. Variances of neurocognitive function were explained by neurotic and psychotic symptoms, but the role of these factors were different to each other and participants did not show intelligence and other cognitive domain decrement except for global memory abilities compared to the non-psychopathology group. Conclusion : Certain patients with mild TBI showed psychopathological symptoms, but these were not directly related to cognitive decrement. Psychopathology and cognitive decrement are discrete aspects in patients with mild TBI. Furthermore, the neurotic symptoms of mild TBI patients made positive complements to decrements or impairments of neurocognitive functions, but the psychotic symptoms had a negative effect on neurocognitive functions.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.26-45
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• 2021

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate characteristics of patients who were admitted to an oriental medicine hospital by traffic accident. Methods: The medical charts of 346 patients admitted to an oriental medicine hospital from June 1, 2017 to May 31, 2018 were analyzed. The Numbering Rating Scale (NRS) and duration of hospitalization were used to evaluate characteristics of the patients. Results: Acupuncture, Moxibustion, Infralux were used to treat all the patients. The most frequently used herbal medication was Danggwisu-san(22.25%). 87 patients(25.14%) visited the outpatient department after being discharged from the hospital. The most frequent complaint in terms of pain was cervical pain(82.7%) and of systemic symptom was headache(23.7%). Men and younger aged patients showed higher therapeutic effect than women and older ages. The most common duration of hospitalization was 2~4 days(42.73%) and positively correlated with therapeutic effect. The most frequent interval between time of injury and visit to the hospital was from 0-1 days(68.90%) and showed no relationship with therapeutic effect. The most frequent admission pathway was "Directly to the hospital"(57.51%). Admission pathway was proportionally associated with duration of hospitalization and treatment results were not. The most common vehicle type involved in the traffic accidents was a sedan(72.25%), accident type was a rear-end collision(43.64%) and showed no relationship with therapeutic effect. Conclusions: In this study, therapeutic effects were highly correlated among men, younger ages, and duration of hospital stay, and was not for interval days, admission pathway, vehicle type, and accident type.