OBJECTIVE: As the rapid progress of aged society, there must be solutions of preparation against unpredicted accidents for aged solitary people. The most important thing that we must consider is the unconstraint of daily life. So, we are to develop a system and algorithm which meet our objectives. METHODS: We have monitored the degree of activity of the aged solitary person. The CCD camera was used not to disturb the daily activity and we evaluated the degree of activity using image processing on personal computer. The activity monitoring during night was assumed by sleeping on the bed, so the major method was breath monitoring during sleeping. On the other hand, daily activity was monitored by wide viewing camera in the living room. To prevent the privacy trouble, the acquired image was converted to binary form and the degree of breath and moving factor was estimated. RESULTS: In this paper we propose a new processing algorithm to accurately measure breathing characteristics in sleep apnea sufferers. We improved the conventional center-of-mass method and further applied the projection-profile method. As a result, we have improved breath measurement accuracy. In a comparison with conventional polysomnography, our method was 92% effective in detecting apnea cases. CONCLUSION: As a result of this study, we can monitor sleep apnea more simply and with no sleep interference. In measuring the activity of daily life, these improved algorithms were applied. So, we established a monitoring method of no-constrained, quantitative measurement for the aged solitary people during the whole day.
Apnea ; Hand ; Humans ; Microcomputers ; Polysomnography ; Privacy ; Respiration ; Sleep Apnea Syndromes*

We evaluate the effects of diltiazem in 19 patients with ischemic heart disease (15 patients) of classical anginal pectoris & 4 patients of variant angina) by means of clinical status & electrocardiographic changes and obtain the results as follows: 1. The pulse rate & blood pressure were decreased by diltiazem slightly but these decreases were not significant in statistical meaning. 2. Diltiazem administration of 4 weeks duration normalized EKG completely in 4 patients & partially in 3 patients among the 13 patients who showed abnormal resting EKG initially. 3. All 19 patients who received diltiazem showed clinical improvement; 9 patients had excellent responses, 7 patients good responses & 3 patients fair responses. 4. Diltiazem had side effects in 3 patients, drowsiness, mild euphoria & possibly tolerance respectively in each patients.
Angina Pectoris* ; Blood Pressure ; Diltiazem ; Electrocardiography ; Euphoria ; Heart Rate ; Humans ; Myocardial Ischemia ; Sleep Stages

Advanced gastric carcinoma is associated with a poor prognosis. Although a number of combination chemotherapy regimens , usually based on 5FU and cisplatin, have been tested in randomized studies, there is no globally accepted standard therapy. Docetaxel is active against advanced gastric carcinoma and some investigators report a response rate ranging from 18% to 24% with a single-agent docetaxel. Kim et al performed a phase II trial with docetaxel plus cisplatin(DC) in patients with untreated advanced gastric cancer, which resulted in a response rate(per protocol population) of 42.4% but a response rate for the intent-to-treatment analysis is only 33.3%. Granulocytopenia worse than grade 3 occurred only in 7.6% in spite of older patients being included. Non-hematologic toxicities were negligible. The lower rate of hematologic and non-hematologic toxicities over a number of other studies is considered as clinically irrelevant. I would like to remind Dr Kim coutiously that he has to adress these discrepancies.
Agranulocytosis ; Cisplatin* ; Drug Therapy* ; Drug Therapy, Combination* ; Fluorouracil ; Humans ; Prognosis ; Research Personnel ; Stomach Neoplasms*

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Herpes zoster(HZ) is a well known viral infection of the nervous system. HZ is associated with the neurologic complication. It may have been expected a change in the cerebrospinal fluid(CSF) of patients with HZ. The purpose of this paper is to present the correlation between CSF findings and neurologic complications in HZ. METHOD: The patients(n=75) with HZ were 31 male and 26 females, who were ranged in age from 15 to 79years(mean 53.4 years) admitted to department of Neurology of Chung Ang Gil General Hospital from June 1992 to May 1995. The patients were evaluated for the etiology, lesion distribution, and complications. CSF study was performed in 32 patients(male/female=20/12), whose age ranged from 16 to 79 years(means 51years) during 5 days to 10days after initial symptom onset. CSF findings were analyzed for their etiology, lesion distribution and complication. RESULTS: The CSF of 25 patients(78.1%) showed pleocytosis(5 to 49/mm3 in 10 patients, means, 62.1/mm3). 7 patients(12.3%) had meningitis symptoms, whose cell counts of CSF were more than 50/mm3(means 128.4/mm3) postherapeutic neuralgia was more common in elder patient than younger patients(p=0.005). Complications tended to correlate with the cell counts of CSF. There was no difference in CSF finding between cranial segmental involvements. CONCLUSION: We confirmed the pleocytosis in CSF of patients with HZ and suggest the development of complications in patients in patients with HZ tend to correlate with the cell counts of CSF.
Cell Count ; Female ; Herpes Zoster* ; Hospitals, General ; Humans ; Leukocytosis ; Male ; Meningitis ; Nervous System ; Neuralgia ; Neurology

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Herpes zoster(HZ) is a well known viral infection of the nervous system. HZ is associated with the neurologic complication. It may have been expected a change in the cerebrospinal fluid(CSF) of patients with HZ. The purpose of this paper is to present the correlation between CSF findings and neurologic complications in HZ. METHOD: The patients(n=75) with HZ were 31 male and 26 females, who were ranged in age from 15 to 79years(mean 53.4 years) admitted to department of Neurology of Chung Ang Gil General Hospital from June 1992 to May 1995. The patients were evaluated for the etiology, lesion distribution, and complications. CSF study was performed in 32 patients(male/female=20/12), whose age ranged from 16 to 79 years(means 51years) during 5 days to 10days after initial symptom onset. CSF findings were analyzed for their etiology, lesion distribution and complication. RESULTS: The CSF of 25 patients(78.1%) showed pleocytosis(5 to 49/mm3 in 10 patients, means, 62.1/mm3). 7 patients(12.3%) had meningitis symptoms, whose cell counts of CSF were more than 50/mm3(means 128.4/mm3) postherapeutic neuralgia was more common in elder patient than younger patients(p=0.005). Complications tended to correlate with the cell counts of CSF. There was no difference in CSF finding between cranial segmental involvements. CONCLUSION: We confirmed the pleocytosis in CSF of patients with HZ and suggest the development of complications in patients in patients with HZ tend to correlate with the cell counts of CSF.
Cell Count ; Female ; Herpes Zoster* ; Hospitals, General ; Humans ; Leukocytosis ; Male ; Meningitis ; Nervous System ; Neuralgia ; Neurology

Collet-Sicard syndrome is one of the syndromes of the multiple lower cranial nerve palsies, characterized by unilateral paralysis of 9th through 12th cranial nerves. The present report describes a 34-year-old woman who had hoarseness, dysarthria, and loss of taste developed after febrile illness. Brain MRI, both T1WI and T2WI, showed high signal intensity in the left jugular foramen. Gd-GTPA contrast injection revealed thickening and enhancement of the left tentorium. Angiography disclosed nonvisualization of the left transverse and sigmoid sinus, and reconstruction of the left internal and external jugular vein by collaterals from the angular, facial, and posterior fossa veins. The patient improved spontaneously two months later. This is the first report of Collet-Sicard syndrome resulting from jugular vein thrombosis.
Adult ; Angiography ; Brain ; Colon, Sigmoid ; Cranial Nerve Diseases ; Cranial Nerves ; Dysarthria ; Female ; Hoarseness ; Humans ; Jugular Veins* ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Paralysis ; Thrombosis* ; Veins

Medullary pyramid is the one place where corticospinal fibers are isolated as the pyramidal tract, and the result of such lesions has been a flaccid hemiplegia. Medial medullary syndrome may occur bilaterally, resulting in flaccid quadriplegia with facial sparing, bilateral lower motor neuron signs of the tongue, and complete loss of position and vibratory sensation affecting all for extremities. Occasionally, only the pyramid is damaged, resulting in a pure motor quadriplegia without other medullary signs. We report a 78-year-old man who suddenly developed flaccid quadriplegia without any other medullary signs. Brain MRI showed bilateral medial medullary infarctions that was probably due to anterior spinal artery occlusion.
Aged ; Arteries ; Brain ; Extremities ; Hemiplegia ; Humans ; Infarction ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Motor Neurons ; Pyramidal Tracts ; Quadriplegia* ; Sensation ; Tongue

There is a wide array of designation for cutaneous vascular disorders based on clinical characteristics, histology, embryology, cellular biology, and hemodynamics. The cutaneous vascular disorders can be divided into hemangioma and vascular malformation according to the biologic classification based on cell kinetics i.e. endothelial hyperplasia. There are clinical and histologic differences between them. In this study, clinical, histologic and im-munohistochemical evaluations were attempted on 40 cases of cutaneous vascular disorders diagnosed the period between 1985 and 1993. The results are as follows: 1) Twenty-three out of forty cases were immunoreacive for proliferating cell nuclear antigen(PCNA). The lesions composed of capillary-sized blood vessels with endothelial hyperplasia were diffusely reactive, whereas those composed largely of dilated blood vessels with or without focal endothelial hyperplasia were only focally reactive. 2) Each groups of the classic classification contained both reactive and nonreactive cases except nevus flammeus and juvenfle hemangioma. 3) In contrast to the cases nonreactive for PCNA, those reactive for PCNA contained areas of proliferating small vessels, which showed reactivity for PCNA. In conclusion, the cutaneous vascular disorders diagnosed by the classic classification are heterogeneous in the pattern of the endothelial hyperplasia and the PCNA staining. Therefore it should be classified by the clinical and the histologic characteristics.
Hemangioma

Mobius syndrome is generally considered to be a static disorder of congenital origin, and is manifested as unilateral or bilateral facial weakness and lateral gaze limitation. In most instances the syndrome occurs sporadically, but rarely familial cases have been reported. We report a family of three members with Mobius syndrome; a 7-year-old girl, a 6-year-old boy, and their 29-year-old mother. Each patient revealed facial diplegia, and unilateral or bilateral lateral rectus palsy. Brain MRI scans showed normal and there were no definite brainstem dysfunctions on electrophysiologic studies.
Abducens Nerve Diseases ; Adult ; Brain ; Brain Stem ; Child ; Female ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Male ; Mobius Syndrome* ; Mothers

Mobius syndrome is generally considered to be a static disorder of congenital origin, and is manifested as unilateral or bilateral facial weakness and lateral gaze limitation. In most instances the syndrome occurs sporadically, but rarely familial cases have been reported. We report a family of three members with Mobius syndrome; a 7-year-old girl, a 6-year-old boy, and their 29-year-old mother. Each patient revealed facial diplegia, and unilateral or bilateral lateral rectus palsy. Brain MRI scans showed normal and there were no definite brainstem dysfunctions on electrophysiologic studies.
Abducens Nerve Diseases ; Adult ; Brain ; Brain Stem ; Child ; Female ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Male ; Mobius Syndrome* ; Mothers