No abstract available.
Aged* ; Humans

No Abstract Available.
X-Ray Film*

No abstract available.
Aged* ; Humans ; Nursing Homes* ; Nursing*

Chronic illness requiring attention and management during a long period of time puts great burden onto patients, their family and society. For patients with chronic illnesses, providing social support is the most important, and the fundamental support comes from their spouses. Amount and quality of support from spouses seems to differentiated according to the sex of patients. Female patients tend to believe that their spouses are not very supportive. Therefore, the researchers assessed the burden of husbands of female arthritis patients to discover the factors that result in greater burden. Also, they developed a theoretical model of husbands' care for their wives through a qualitative research into husbands' experience. Method 1: The study material was 650 female arthritis patients registered in an arthritis clinic. The questionnaire about the disease experience of female arthritis patients and the burden of husbands were sent. Returned questionnaires numbered 210(32.3%) and 27 were excluded because of inadequate answers. The remaining 183 questionnaires were analyzed. The mean age of the patients was 51 years and the mean age of spouses was 55 years. The mean marital period was 28 years. The average duration since diagnosis was 9.1 years. Education level was varied from primary school to graduate school, and average income/month was 1,517,300 won. Method 2: Initial questionnaire studies on the burden of husbands were performed. Among 183 responding husbands, 23 consented to participate for a qualitative research. Data was obtained by direct and telephone interviews. The mean age of participants was 58 years, and the educational level and socioeconomic status also varied. Result: 1. Husbands' burden: The average burden was 57.68 with a range of 6-96. 2. Burden and general characteristics: The husband's burden correlated with the age of the patients, numbers in the family, therapy methods, patient's level of discomfort, patient's disease severity, patient's level of dependence and the husband's understanding of the level of severity. 3. Linear correlation analysis on burden: The husbands' burden is explained in 22.5% by husband's recognition of level of severity and husbands' age. 4. There were four patterns of the burden on husbands: both objectve burden and subjective burden were high(pattern I), both of objectve burden and subjective burden were low(pattern II), objective burden was high but subjective burden was low(pattern III), objective burden was low but subjective burden was high(pattern IV). The pattern was correlated with the family income, educational level of the patients and their husbands, therapy methods, patient's level of discomfort, patient's disease severity, patient's level of dependence and husband's understanding of level of severity. 5. The core category of the caring experience of the husbands with arthritis patients was "companionship". The causal factor was the patients' experience due to symptoms : physical disfigurement, pain, immobility, limitation of house chores, and limitation of social activities. Contextural factors are husbands' identification of housework and husbands' concern about the disease. The mediating factors are economic problems, fear of aging, feeling of limitation and family support. The strategy for interaction is mind control and how to solve emotional stress. The "companionship" resulted from caring activities, participation of household activities, helping patients' to coping with emotional experience. 6. Companionship is established through the process of entering intervention, and caring state of mind. Entering intervention is the phase of participation of therapy and involvement of houseworks. The caring phase consists of decision on therapy, providing therapy, providing direct care, and taking over the household role of wife. Through caring phase, the changing phase set a stage in which husbands consolidate the relationship with their wives, and are reminded of the meaning of marriage. As a result, in changing phase, husbands' companionship is enhanced. In conclusion, nursing care of chronic illnesses should include a family member especially the spouse. All information on disease shoud be provided to patients and whole family member. Strong support should also be provided to overcome difficulties in taking over role of other sex. Then the quality of life of patients and families will be much improved.
Aging ; Arthritis ; Chronic Disease* ; Diagnosis ; Education ; Family Characteristics ; Female ; Housekeeping ; Humans ; Interviews as Topic ; Marriage ; Models, Theoretical ; Negotiating ; Nursing Care ; Qualitative Research ; Quality of Life ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Social Class ; Spouses* ; Stress, Psychological

Because the postmortem changes rapidly distort values of many constituents in the body fluids, the determination of postmortem chemical changes and relation among body fluids is very important in medicolegal community. A laboratory result is not useful if appropriate data for comparison are lacking. The aim of this paper is to determine the reference ranges and the postmortem changes for chemical constituents in postmortem specimen. We examined 17 clinical laboratory parameters in cadaveric blood and vitreous humor obtained from 51 autopsy cases. The mean, standard error, standard deviation and confidence interval of all measured constituents were shown in Table 2 & Figure 1. The postmortem blood level of amylase, phosporus, LDH, ALT, AST and CPK are very higher than those of antemortem blood. The postmortem vitreous level of total bilirubin, triglyceride, GGT, alkaline phosphatase, albumin, total protein and cholesterol are very low and is not reliable. The ratio of vitreous/blood in calcium, BUN, creatine and uric acid are 0.74, 0.68, 0.29 and 0.23 in decreasing orders(Table 3,4). For the medical examiner or pathologist, routine chemical examinations of the vitreous humor can provide evidence of abnormality not apparent in gross or microscopic examination of the tissue. A more extensive study will be required, using a larger number of subjects, to establish the full range of variability.
Alkaline Phosphatase ; Amylases ; Autopsy ; Bilirubin ; Body Fluids ; Cadaver ; Calcium ; Cholesterol ; Confidence Intervals ; Coroners and Medical Examiners ; Creatine ; Humans ; Postmortem Changes ; Reference Values ; Triglycerides ; Uric Acid ; Vitreous Body

The aims of study presented here were to determine dose-dependent effects of UVB irradiation on CHS reaction and comparative effects of VVB on the induction and elicitation in guinea pigs. Pre-induction exposure to either suberythemal or supraerythemal doses of UVB resulted in suppreasion of CHS (53.47% & 57.64%) campared to positive control (79. 86%) However, suberythemal doses of UVB generated a more potent suppression than supraerythemal doses. Pre-elicitation exposure to suberythemal doses of UVB on the elicitation sites and adjacent to elicitation sites resulted in suppressed CHS reactions in both groups (60.4zg & 56.25p,). When the reaction by UVB was eliminated from the cutaneous reaction elicited in guinea pigs sensitized to DNCB, by UVB irradiation on the adjacent to elicitation sites, generated a more potent suppression than that UVB was directly irradiated on the elicitation sites.
Animals ; Dermatitis, Contact* ; Dinitrochlorobenzene* ; Guinea Pigs* ; Guinea*

Here we report an autopsy case of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) with severe hypertriglyceridemia (12,900 mg/dl). A 29-year-old woman with a history of type 1 diabetes was found dead at a motel. There was no injury on external inspection, but a lump of cheese-like material was noted in the heart at autopsy and peripheral blood plasma had a creamy appearance. After postmortem biochemical analysis, we made a diagnosis of DKA with severe hypertriglyceridemia and concluded that these unusual autopsy findings were caused by DKA and postmortem change. Uncontrolled diabetes often causes DKA and hypertriglyceridemia. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report in Korea of DKA with severe hypertriglyceridemia diagnosed by autopsy.
Adult ; Autopsy* ; Diabetic Ketoacidosis* ; Diagnosis ; Female ; Heart* ; Humans ; Hypertriglyceridemia* ; Korea ; Plasma ; Postmortem Changes

No abstract available.
Electric Stimulation* ; Vocal Cords*

PURPOSE: In this study, we compared the quantitative characteristics of dynamic salivary gland scintigraphy with static scintigraphy in patients with clinical sicca syndrome using Tc-99m pertechnetate. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fifty-two parotid glands and 52 submandibular glands out of 26 patients with clinical sicca syndrome were studied by dynamic and static salivary gland scintigraphy. Ten normal volunteers were also studied as a control group for comparison of scintigraphic parameters. Ten minutes after injection of 370 MBq Tc-99m pertechnetate, we obtained pre-stimulus static images for a few minutes. Then dynamic salivary gland scintigraphy with lemon juice stimulation was performed for 20 minutes. Finally we obtained post-stimulus static images after dynamic images. On dynamic study, functional parameters such as uptake rate, secretion rate and re-uptake rate were calculated. The results of dynamic study and static images were compared. RESULTS: On dynamic study, we could obtain functional parameters of salivary glands successfully. On dynamic study, 22 parotid glands and 22 submandibular glands out of each of 52 glands are abnormal. The static images demonstrated somewhat different results, of which reasons we could assume via dynamic study. CONCLUSION: Dynamic salivary gland scintigraphy using Tc-99m perechnetate were more functional than static images and might be useful in the assessment of the functional change of the salivary gland in patients with clinical sicca syndrome.
Healthy Volunteers ; Humans ; Parotid Gland ; Radionuclide Imaging* ; Salivary Glands* ; Sjogren's Syndrome* ; Sodium Pertechnetate Tc 99m ; Submandibular Gland

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability and the validity of the Korean version of Personality Disorder Questionnaire-4+ (PDQ-4+). METHODS: PDQ-4+ was administered to 540 subjects of general population group and 37 subjects of personality disorder group. For measuring concurrent reliability, we tested internal consistency, split-half reliability, test-retest reliability and correlation of item score of subscale and mean of subscale. And also, we performed factor analysis for the evaluation of validity, and t-test to group difference of the total scores between general population group and personality disorder group. RESULTS: In general population group and personality disorder group, internal consistency was above .500 (range of Cronbach alpha: .4007 to .6693) in most of the Personality disorder categories. Split-half reliability was .839 between even and odd items. Test-retest reliability done 2 weeks interval was .868. Item scores of subscales and mean of subscales showed high correlation coefficient. Group difference of the total scores between general population and personality disorder group showed very significant difference (t=9.146, df=76, p=.000). CONCLUSION: The PDQ-4+ shows a reasonable degree of reliability and validity and could be a valuable tool in screening for overall personality disturbances.
Humans ; Mass Screening ; Personality Disorders* ; Population Groups ; Reproducibility of Results*