PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to pave the way for developing nursing intervention strategies to enhance family resilience by identifying unique patterns of resilience in families of elderly patients with dementia. METHODS: The Q-methodology was used to define types and describe characteristics of family resilience. After in-depth interviews with 12 family members of patients with dementia and study of related literature, final 50 Q-samples were selected by collecting the opinions of experts. The selected 50 Q-statements were sorted by 30 family members (P-samples). The PC-QUNAL program was used to analyze Q-sort data. RESULTS: Four distinctive Q-factors for family resilience were identified: I. Seeking positive meaning, II. Developing reasonable cooperation with family members, III. Accepting reality passively, IV. Depending on external resources. CONCLUSION: Families caring for elderly patients with dementia show unique patterns of family resilience, which result from multi-factors, such as their own belief systems or culture, organizational patterns, and communication processes, in dealing with crisis. The results of this study can be useful in confirming the types of resilience of families of patients with dementia and their characteristics, and the underlying data can be used as to develop tailored nursing strategies for strengthening family capacities to master adversity.
Aged ; Dementia ; Humans ; Organizational Culture ; Q-Sort

A case of the recurrent neurilemmoma of vagus nerve in the neck is presented. It was located in the upper third of the right lateral neck. The patient was presented with hoarseness and monoparesis of the right arm. The tumor was composed of large cystic portion and solid nodule in the right carotid fossa. Since total surgical removal of the tumor could cause functional deterioration of the involved vagus nerve, it was removed by means of intracapsular enucleation. Postoperatively, the monoparesis of the right arm was disappeared with preservation of vagus nerve function. It would appear that an intracapsular enucleation may be advisible in some cases of neurilemmomas of the cervical vagus nerve to maintain the function of the involved vagus nerve.
Arm ; Hoarseness ; Humans ; Neck ; Neurilemmoma* ; Paresis ; Vagus Nerve*

BACKGROUND: Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations may regulate the progression and chemosensitivity of leukemia. Few studies regarding mitochondrial aberrations and haplogroups in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and their clinical impacts have been reported. Therefore, we focused on the mtDNA length heteroplasmies minisatellite instability (MSI), copy number alterations, and distribution of mitochondrial haplogroups in Korean patients with AML. METHODS: This study investigated 74 adult patients with AML and 70 controls to evaluate mtDNA sequence alterations, MSI, mtDNA copy number, haplogroups, and their clinical implications. The hypervariable (HV) control regions (HV1 and HV2), tRNA(leu1)gene, and cytochrome b gene of mtDNA were analyzed. Two mtDNA minisatellite markers, 16189 poly-C (¹⁶¹⁸⁴CCCCCTCCCC¹⁶¹⁹³, 5CT4C) and 303 poly-C (³⁰³CCCCCCCTCCCCC³¹⁵, 7CT5C), were used to examine the mtDNA MSI. RESULTS: In AML, most mtDNA sequence variants were single nucleotide substitutions, but there were no significant differences compared to those in controls. The number of mtMSI patterns increased in AML. The mean mtDNA copy number of AML patients increased approximately 9-fold compared to that of controls (P < 0.0001). Haplogroup D4 was found in AML with a higher frequency compared to that in controls (31.0% vs. 15.7%, P=0.046). None of the aforementioned factors showed significant impacts on the outcomes. CONCLUSION: AML cells disclosed more heterogeneous patterns with the mtMSI markers and had increased mtDNA copy numbers. These findings implicate mitochondrial genome instability in primary AML cells. Therefore, mtDNA haplogroup D4 might be associated with AML risk among Koreans.
Adult ; Cytochromes b ; DNA, Mitochondrial ; Genome, Mitochondrial* ; Humans ; Leukemia ; Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute* ; Minisatellite Repeats