Patient compliance with presciibed drug regimens may be improved by finding out incom-pliant patients and exhorting them to take their medicines, but it's not an easy task. We telephoned those who had not shown up at the pharmacy within 7 days after the preparation of their drugs to come and receive the dispensed drugs. When the dispensed drugs had to be disposed of after a long misplacement, we prepared a “patient compliance report” to inform the attending physicians about noncompliance by attaching it to the patient's visit history. Further, of when they visited the hospital again we gave guidance about drug compliance at the window to those whose dispensed drugs had been disposed.
We contacted 63 patients by telephone during the 3-month period from January to March 1995 of the patients who left their drugs at the pharmacy, and found 30.6% of them had some compliance problems. Telephone calls were effective for reducing the proportion of the patients whose dispensed drugs were disposed of to 0.03% from 0.11%, the percentage worked our during the 5-month period from August to December 1994 during which no telephone call was made. We reported 19 drug disposal cases to the physicians by means of the “patient compliance report”. All the physicians appreciated it as they were brought to a realizatopn of the drug compliance rate of their patients.
As there were some patients who did not know that their drugs were prescribed, we considered how to cope with the left dispensed drugs would not be a question of the pharmacy alone. It should be handled as a problem of the whole hospital from the stage ofconsultation to payment.

Background: The options for stabilization appliance therapy for masticatory muscle pain include soft occlusal and hard stabilization appliances. A previous study suggested that hard stabilization appliance therapy was effective for patients with local myalgia who developed long facets on their occlusal appliances. The objective of this study was to identify patients in whom a soft occlusal appliance should be used to treat masticatory muscle pain by analyzing the type of muscle pain present and patient factors that influenced the effectiveness of this treatment. Methods: The study included 42 patients diagnosed with local myalgia or myofascial pain according to the Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandibular Disorders Diagnostic Decision Tree. The analysis of patient factors included variables believed to be associated with temporomandibular disorders. First, a temporary screening appliance was used for 2 weeks to assess each patient for bruxism during sleep. Soft appliance therapy was then started. For each patient, the effectiveness of the appliance was evaluated according to the intensity of tenderness during muscle palpation and the treatment satisfaction score at one month after starting treatment. Results: Data from 37 of the 42 patients were available for analysis. Twenty-five patients reported satisfaction with the appliance. In logistic regression analysis, the odds ratio for reduction of facet length was 1.998. Nineteen patients showed at least a 30% improvement in the visual analog scale score. The odds ratio for local myalgia was 18.148. Conclusion Soft appliance therapy may be used in patients with local myalgia. Moreover, patients who develop short facets on the appliance surface are likely to be satisfied with soft appliance therapy. Soft appliance therapy may be appropriate for patients with local myalgia who develop short facets on their occlusal appliance.

A 46 year-old man underwent double valve replacement for valve insufficiency due to infective endocarditis. Upon withdrawal from extracorporeal circulation and administration of 8 units of fresh frozen plasma, a large amount of yellow serous secretion was aspirated from the trachea, and rapid and exacerbated oxygenation was observed. We determined that the patient was not congested, based on his hemodynamics; instead, he appeared to have acquired transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI). The patient was given a steroid infusion. By the time the patient returned to the intensive care unit, his oxygenation capacity improved and the secretions from his trachea decreased. The patient was weaned off the ventilator on the second post-operative day. Inhaled nitric oxide was very effective in improving oxygenation. We conjectured that TRALI should be recognized as a differential diagnosis for poor oxygenation after withdrawal from extracorporeal circulation.

BACKGROUND: We investigated the association between psychological distress and oral health status/oral health-related quality of life (OHQoL) in Japanese community-dwelling people. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study using data from the Nagasaki Islands Study. A total of 1183 (455 men and 728 women) has been analyzed in this study. Psychological distress was measured using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K6). Oral health status was measured by dental examination. The OHQoL was measured using the General Oral Health Assessment Index (GOHAI). We defined the total score of ≥5 points on the K6 as high psychological distress (high-K6 group). RESULTS: The multiple linear regression analysis to identify the GOHAI showed that gender, K6, the total number of teeth, the number of dental caries, and visiting a dental clinic within the past 6 months significantly associated with the GOHAI. Among all of these variables, high-K6 (≥ 5) was a substantial contributing factor of the GOHAI (β = - 0.23, 95% Cl - 2.31 to -1.41, p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS It is likely that the individual with high psychological distress was strongly related to poor OHQoL even in the general population.
Aged ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; Dental Caries/epidemiology* ; Female ; Humans ; Independent Living/statistics & numerical data* ; Japan/epidemiology* ; Linear Models ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Oral Health/statistics & numerical data* ; Quality of Life/psychology* ; Sex Factors ; Stress, Psychological/epidemiology*