BACKGROUND: Dementia has emerged as a leading public health problem with elderly persons and its early detection is important for treatment in curable cases. Although dementia screening tests are available, they are still complex and time consuming in practice and therefore difficult to use. Our goal was to validate the time and change(T&C) test, a simple, standardized method for detecting dementia in the elderly populations. METHODS: Participants were 59 patients aged 65 years or older at an urban hospital from November 1 to December 31, 2001. The time test evaluated the understanding of clock hands indicating 11:10, and the change test the ability making 1,000 Won from a group of coins consisting one 500 Won, seven 100 Won, seven 50 Won. T&C ratings were validated against a reference standard based on physician`s diagnosis. Test-retest reliability and inter-observer reliability were assessed. RESULTS: The T&C test had a sensitivity of 73.0%, specificity of 90.9%, positive predictive value of 93.1%, and negative predictive value of 66.7%. Test-retest and inter-observer agreement rates were 95% and 95%, respectively. The T&C test was not influenced by education. The time and change tests took a mean of 7.5 seconds and 19.6 seconds to complete respectively, and was acceptable to participants. When timed cut points were added, the T&C test had a sensitivity of 86.5%, specificity of 40.9% and test-retest and inter-observer agreement rates were 77.3% and 81.8%, respectively. CONCLUSION: The T&C test is a simple, accurate reliable, performance-based tool for detection of dementia in the elderly.
Aged* ; Dementia* ; Diagnosis ; Education ; Hand ; Hospitals, Urban ; Humans ; Mass Screening* ; Numismatics ; Public Health ; Sensitivity and Specificity

No abstract available.
DNA Restriction Enzymes* ; DNA* ; Ribotyping* ; Staphylococcus aureus* ; Staphylococcus*

No abstract available.
Epidemiologic Studies* ; Methicillin Resistance* ; Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus* ; Plasmids*

No abstract available.
Epidemiologic Studies* ; Methicillin Resistance* ; Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus* ; Plasmids*

No abstract available.
Meningitis*

No abstract available.
Amylases* ; Child* ; Encephalitis, Arbovirus* ; Humans

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this paper is to study the possible differences in clinical and polysomnographic findings, depending on the presence or absence of subjective complaints of abnormal sleep behavior, in patients with RWA on polysomnography. METHOD: We reviewed patient records and polysomnographic data of patients referred to the Sleep Laboratory at Seoul National University Hospital from June 1996 through October 2002. We defined the manifest RBD group (n=32) as patients having both complaints of abnormal sleep behavior and RWA on polysomnography. The latent RBD group (n=20) consisted of patients who exhibited RWA on polysomnography but did not complain of abnormal sleep behavior. The clinical characteristics and polysomnographic findings between the two groups were compared and analyzed. RESULTS: Fifty-two subjects had RWA, as detected by polysomnography (42 males and 10 females, mean age of 55.1+/-19.1 years). Subjects in the manifest RBD group were significantly older than those in the latent RBD group (61.59+/-13.5 vs. 44.70+/-2.76 years, independent t-test, p<0.01). More subjects in the manifest RBD group exhibited abnormal REM behavior on polysomnography than did subjects in the latent RBD group (81.3 vs. 50.0%, Fisher's exact test, p<0.05). No significant differences between the groups were found in the prevalence of brain disorders and primary sleep disorders, gender proportion, and sleep architecture. CONCLUSION: No difference in sleep architecture was found between the manifest and the latent RBD groups. Only age and the presence of abnormal sleep behavior on polysomnography differentiated the two groups. We suggest that RWA on polysomnography without complaints of abnormal sleep behavior may be early manifestation of manifest RBD. Attention to RWA on polysomnography is necessary to help prevent full-blown RBD from developing.
Brain Diseases ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Mental Disorders* ; Polysomnography ; Prevalence ; REM Sleep Behavior Disorder ; Seoul ; Sleep Wake Disorders ; Sleep, REM*

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence rate of OSA in subjects whose main sleep complaint is insomnia and to find differential factors of OSA in these insomniac subjects. METHOD: We reviewed the medical records and polysomnographic findings of patients referred to the Sleep Laboratory at Seoul National University Hospital from January 1996 to December 2002. Four-hundred and seventy subjects complained of insomnia as their main sleep problem (235 males and 235 females, mean age 53.6+/-12.4 years). First, we investigated the prevalence rate of OSA in these insomniac patients. Second, we compared the clinical and demographic characteristics of the OSA-associated group with those of the non-associated group. Third, we examined whether the degree or presence of differential factors within the OSA group correlate with severity of OSA, as determined by the respiratory disturbance index (RDI). RESULTS: Among 470 insomniac subjects, 125 subjects (26.6%) were diagnosed as OSA by nocturnal polysomnography. OSA-associated subjects were significantly older (58.4+/-12.3 years vs. 51.8+/-11.2 years, p<0.01), and had significantly higher body mass index (BMI) (23.4+/-3.3 kg/m2 vs. 22.5+/-3.1 kg/m2, p=0.44) than non-associated subjects. The OSA-associated group had more subjects with male gender (64.0 % vs. 44.9 %, p<0.01), hypertension (20.0 % vs. 9.3 %, p<0.01) or snoring (96.0 % vs. 63.5 %, p<0.01). Within the OSA-associated group, age had a significant positive correlation with RDI (p=0.01). CONCLUSION: We found that a considerable portion of patients complaining of insomnia as their main sleep problem were diagnosed as OSA. Snoring, old age, male gender, obesity, and comorbid hypertension were found to be differential factors of OSA in insomniac patients. We suggest that diagnostic efforts including nocturnal polysomnography are needed for insomniac patients with any of the above risk factors of OSA.
Body Mass Index ; Female ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Male ; Medical Records ; Obesity ; Polysomnography ; Prevalence ; Risk Factors ; Seoul ; Sleep Apnea, Obstructive* ; Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders* ; Snoring

The status of renal replacement therapy in Korea as follows ; 1) The response rate to questionaire was 57.9% of the 226 hemodialysis centers in Korea and data file was sent in the 62.4% of responder. 2) The number of dialysis center was 226 and the number of hemodialysis machine was 3,507 and annual increasing rate were 8,7%, 14.0%, respectively. 3) The total number of ESRD patients was 20,244 and prevalance and incidence of ESRD were 431.9 and 101.1 patients per million population(ppm). 4) The proportion of renal replacement therapy was hemodialysis(HD) 53.3%, peritoneal dialysis(PD) 17.196, renal transplants(KT) 29.5%. 5) The proportion of long-term and elderly patients was markedly increased comparing 1985 (long term dialysis 20% vs. 2%, over 60 year old patients 26.2% vs. 13.8%. 6) The primary cause of renal disease was diabetic nephropathy 34.09o, chronic glomerulone-phritis 20.8%, hypertensive nephropathy 15.7%. 7) The mean BMI(body mass index,' kg/M)in over 18 year old patients was 20.7+/-2.7 kg/M in the HD and 22.23.0 kg/M in the PD. 71.9M of HD patients and 73.2% of PD were in the normal range (18.5-24.9). 8) The fistula survival rate was 6 month 93.4%, 1 yr 91.7%, 3 yr 87.6%, 5 yr 84.7%. 9) The cause of death were cardiac disease 31.8%, miscellaneous 23.5%, vascular disease 17.2%, infection 14.2%, liver disease 1.2%, social cause 5.9%.
Adolescent ; Aged ; Automatic Data Processing ; Cause of Death ; Diabetic Nephropathies ; Dialysis ; Fistula ; Heart Diseases ; Humans ; Incidence ; Kidney Failure, Chronic ; Korea* ; Liver Diseases ; Middle Aged ; Reference Values ; Renal Dialysis ; Renal Replacement Therapy* ; Survival Rate ; Vascular Diseases

Cerebral venous thrombosis is come from thromboplebitis of infectious origin and bland occlusion of cerebral vein by various causes. Although the main cause of cerebral venous thrombosis is thrombophlebitis, the bland occlusion causes it infrequently as a form of an infarct state. We report a case of cerebral venous infarction caused by splenectomy induced thrombocytosis.
Cerebral Veins ; Infarction ; Splenectomy ; Thrombocytosis* ; Thrombophlebitis ; Venous Thrombosis