PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to develop and implement the Hospice Smart Patient Program and to evaluate its effectiveness. METHODS: It was quasi-experimental non-equivalent pre-post study. Breast cancer patients who underwent surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy, or who needed palliative care, participated in the study. Participants were divided into two groups, experimental and control groups based on their preferences. The program was developed after literature review and discussion among experts on hospice and palliative care. Participants who were in the experimental group received either face-to-face or phone "Hospice Smart Patient" Service at least once a week for 5 months. RESULTS: There was a significant difference in quality of life and communication skill between the two groups after the service was provided. In addition, participants in experimental group showed improved decision making skills, mastery sense, and understanding of hospice and palliative care, which would be beneficial in improving their quality of life. CONCLUSION: We have concluded that the "Hospice Smart Patient" Program is useful for cancer patients in decision making, improving self-control and choosing hospice care to improve their quality of life.
Breast Neoplasms/drug therapy/*psychology/surgery ; Communication ; Decision Making ; Female ; *Hospices ; Humans ; Middle Aged ; *Palliative Care ; Program Development ; Program Evaluation ; Quality of Life

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate physical and ultrasonographic (US) imaging findings in pain-free shoulders of high school baseball players. METHOD: Physical examination including range of motion (ROM) and several pain provocative tests and US examination on both shoulders in forty-one high school baseball players were performed. The findings of these examinations were classified according to the dominance of shoulders and position of the players and described. RESULTS: Neer, Jobe, Hawkins test, and acromioclavicular tenderness were positive in 33.3%, 4.8%, 28.6%, and 38.3% respectively. Dominant shoulders had larger ROM of external rotation and internal rotation than non-dominant shoulders (p <0.05). Dominant shoulders of pitchers group had larger ROM of external rotation and smaller ROM of internal rotation than those of non-pitchers group (p <0.05). Dominant supraspinatus tendons of pitchers group were thicker than those of non-pitchers group (p <0.05). CONCLUSION: About one third of pain-free shoulders of baseball players showed positive in pain provocative tests. There were several differences in shoulder ROM and ultrasonographic thickness of supraspinatus tendon according to the dominance of shoulders and position of players.
Baseball* ; Humans ; Physical Examination* ; Range of Motion, Articular ; Shoulder* ; Tendons ; Ultrasonography*

BACKGROUND/AIMS: The changes in an Electrogastrography (EGG) in uremic patients on maintenance hemodialysis with dyspeptic complaints are not well known. The aim of this study was to investigate the EGG findings in uremic patients with dyspeptic complaints and note the difference of EGG findings between uremic patients with dyspeptic complaints and patients with functional dyspepsia. METHODS: Fifty two subjects were enrolled. They were assigned to: group I, healthy volunteers without dyspeptic complaints (n=15); group II, patients with dysmotility-like dyspepsia (n=22); or group III, uremic patients undergoing hemodialysis with dysmotility-like dyspepsia (n=15). The data was compared among groups. RESULTS: There was no difference in the percentage of normal slow wave frequency, and fed to fasting power ratio among the groups. However, frequencies of abnormal EGG findings were 4 (27%) in group I, 10 (40%) group II and 9 (60%) in group III. Therefore the frequency was marginally different among group I, group II or group III (p=0.06). CONCLUSIONS: Impaired gastric myoelectric activity was more frequently observed in uremic patients or patients with dysmotility-like dyspepsia than normal controls. However frequencies of abnormal EGG findings between uremic patients and patients with dysmotility-like dyspepsia were not significantly different.
Dyspepsia* ; Fasting ; Healthy Volunteers ; Humans ; Kidney Failure, Chronic ; Ovum ; Renal Dialysis*

Objectives: Adolescent suicide is a serious national issue in Korea. Recently, life satisfaction has been recognized as a major factor related to this issue. The main purpose of this study was to identify the domains of life satisfaction that affect suicidal behavior in adolescence. Methods: Data were collected from eight middle schools in Incheon, Korea. A total of 1297 students answered questions regarding their demographic characteristics, happiness, self-related life satisfaction domains (appearance, leisure time, physical health, and mental health), depressive symptoms, and suicidal behavior. Results: In the Spearman correlation analysis, female sex, perceived socioeconomic status (SES), happiness, and all four self-related satisfaction scores showed significant correlations with depression and suicidality. Multivariate regression analysis suggested that suicidality was significantly affected by perceived SES, satisfaction with appearance, mental health satisfaction, and depression. Finally, depression was identified as a partial mediator of the association between mental health satisfaction and suicidality, and a complete mediator of the association between female sex and suicidality. Conclusion Perceived SES, satisfaction with appearance, and mental health satisfaction significantly affected students’ suicidality, with or without the effect of depression. Health authorities, educators, and family members must be aware of this to identify adolescents at suicide risk earlier.

Objectives: The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between the chronotype and the burnout, so we investigated the mediating effects of the mediators such as perceived stress, stress response, and depression. Methods: Employees working at Incheon Customs conducted a mental health self-examination through the internet. Among them, 174 people who agreed to the mental health survey participated in the study. Participants completed questionnaires including Composite Scale of Morningness (CSM), Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Stress Response Inventory (SRI), Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS). Results: Our results showed a higher degree of CES-D, SRI, exhaustion, and cynicism in evening and intermediate type compared to morning type, and a higher degree of professional efficacy in morning type compared to intermediate type. CSM was shown to have a direct effect on exhaustion and indirect effect through CES-D and SRI. CSM also had a direct effect on professional efficacy and had an indirect effect through the CES-D. However, CSM was found to have only indirect effects through the SRI for Cynicism. Conclusions In this study, individuals with evening type tend to experience a high degree of burnout (exhaustion, cynicism and professional efficacy) through the mediation effect of depression and stress response. Further study is necessary to reveal the effect of management of the depression and stress response in the employee with evening type.

Objectives: Adolescent suicide is a serious national issue in Korea. Recently, life satisfaction has been recognized as a major factor related to this issue. The main purpose of this study was to identify the domains of life satisfaction that affect suicidal behavior in adolescence. Methods: Data were collected from eight middle schools in Incheon, Korea. A total of 1297 students answered questions regarding their demographic characteristics, happiness, self-related life satisfaction domains (appearance, leisure time, physical health, and mental health), depressive symptoms, and suicidal behavior. Results: In the Spearman correlation analysis, female sex, perceived socioeconomic status (SES), happiness, and all four self-related satisfaction scores showed significant correlations with depression and suicidality. Multivariate regression analysis suggested that suicidality was significantly affected by perceived SES, satisfaction with appearance, mental health satisfaction, and depression. Finally, depression was identified as a partial mediator of the association between mental health satisfaction and suicidality, and a complete mediator of the association between female sex and suicidality. Conclusion Perceived SES, satisfaction with appearance, and mental health satisfaction significantly affected students’ suicidality, with or without the effect of depression. Health authorities, educators, and family members must be aware of this to identify adolescents at suicide risk earlier.

Objectives: The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between the chronotype and the burnout, so we investigated the mediating effects of the mediators such as perceived stress, stress response, and depression. Methods: Employees working at Incheon Customs conducted a mental health self-examination through the internet. Among them, 174 people who agreed to the mental health survey participated in the study. Participants completed questionnaires including Composite Scale of Morningness (CSM), Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Stress Response Inventory (SRI), Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS). Results: Our results showed a higher degree of CES-D, SRI, exhaustion, and cynicism in evening and intermediate type compared to morning type, and a higher degree of professional efficacy in morning type compared to intermediate type. CSM was shown to have a direct effect on exhaustion and indirect effect through CES-D and SRI. CSM also had a direct effect on professional efficacy and had an indirect effect through the CES-D. However, CSM was found to have only indirect effects through the SRI for Cynicism. Conclusions In this study, individuals with evening type tend to experience a high degree of burnout (exhaustion, cynicism and professional efficacy) through the mediation effect of depression and stress response. Further study is necessary to reveal the effect of management of the depression and stress response in the employee with evening type.

Objective: To develop and evaluate a deep learning model for automated segmentation and detection of bone metastasis on spinal MRI. Materials and Methods: We included whole spine MRI scans of adult patients with bone metastasis: 662 MRI series from 302 patients (63.5 ± 11.5 years; male:female, 151:151) from three study centers obtained between January 2015 and August 2021 for training and internal testing (random split into 536 and 126 series, respectively) and 49 MRI series from 20 patients (65.9 ± 11.5 years; male:female, 11:9) from another center obtained between January 2018 and August 2020 for external testing. Three sagittal MRI sequences, including non-contrast T1-weighted image (T1), contrast-enhanced T1-weighted Dixon fat-only image (FO), and contrast-enhanced fat-suppressed T1-weighted image (CE), were used. Seven models trained using the 2D and 3D U-Nets were developed with different combinations (T1, FO, CE, T1 + FO, T1 + CE, FO + CE, and T1 + FO + CE). The segmentation performance was evaluated using Dice coefficient, pixel-wise recall, and pixel-wise precision. The detection performance was analyzed using per-lesion sensitivity and a free-response receiver operating characteristic curve. The performance of the model was compared with that of five radiologists using the external test set. Results: The 2D U-Net T1 + CE model exhibited superior segmentation performance in the external test compared to the other models, with a Dice coefficient of 0.699 and pixel-wise recall of 0.653. The T1 + CE model achieved per-lesion sensitivities of 0.828 (497/600) and 0.857 (150/175) for metastases in the internal and external tests, respectively. The radiologists demonstrated a mean per-lesion sensitivity of 0.746 and a mean per-lesion positive predictive value of 0.701 in the external test. Conclusion The deep learning models proposed for automated segmentation and detection of bone metastases on spinal MRI demonstrated high diagnostic performance.

Rectal prolapse is a protrusion of the rectum beyond the anal canal. Since rectal prolapse is a surgical disease, it is mostly diagnosed and treated at the surgical department. However, when surgical complications occur or they are suspected after an operation for colorectal disease, colonoscopy may now have a role in diagnosing the actual status of the problem. We present here the case of penetration of mesh at the distal rectum that was incidentally diagnosed by colonoscopy and the patient had previously undergone presacral rectopexy for rectal prolapse. Only one such case has been reported abroad and there has been no such case report in Korea. We report here on a case for which colonoscopy had a crucial role in diagnosing an occult complication after a colorectal operation that used a prosthesis.
Anal Canal ; Colonoscopy ; Humans ; Korea ; Prostheses and Implants ; Rectal Prolapse ; Rectum

PURPOSE: There has been no attempt to establish an objective implant surgical evaluation protocol to assess residents' surgical competence and improve their surgical outcomes. The present study presents a newly developed assessment and rating system and simulation model that can assist the teaching staffs to evaluate the surgical events and surgical skills of residents objectively. METHODS: Articles published in peer-reviewed English journals were selected using several scientific databases and subsequently reviewed regarding surgical competence and assessment tools. Particularly, medical journals reporting rating and evaluation protocols for various types of medical surgeries were thoroughly analyzed. Based on these studies, an implant surgical technique assessment and rating system (iSTAR) has been developed. Also, a specialized dental typodont was developed for the valid and reliable assessment of surgery. RESULTS: The iSTAR consists of two parts including surgical information and task-specific checklists. Specialized simulation model was subsequently produced and can be used in combination with iSTAR. CONCLUSIONS: The assessment and rating system provided may serve as a reference guide for teaching staffs to evaluate the residents' implant surgical techniques.
Checklist ; Dental Implantation ; Educational Measurement ; Mental Competency ; Oral Surgical Procedures