Reviewing the results of the blood cultures performed at Yeungnam University Hospital during 4-year-period through January, 1, 1984 to December 31, 1987, the following results were obtained. 1) Out of 8083 blood specimens cultured microorganisms grew in 582 specimens with positivity rate of 7.20%. Polymicrobial bacteremia was found in 16 patients. 2) Among 582 positive specimens, Gram-positive cocci grew in 189 specimens, and Gram-negative bacilli, in 393 specimens. Clinically significant microorganisms consisted of 82 Staphylococcus aureus, and 20 Streptococcus species in Gram-positive cocci group, 80 Salmonella typhi, 72 Escherichia coli, 72 Salmonella paratyphi A in Enterobacteriaceae, and 46 Pseudomonas cepacia, and 16 Pseudomonas aeruginosa in glucose non-fermenting microorganisms. 3) Increasing incidence of Serratia, Acinetobacter and Pseudomonas species as major nosocomial infection source is noteworthy. They showed increased tendency from 6.3% of 1984 to 17.7% of 1987 of total positive blood cultures. 4) High isolation rate of Pseudomonas species and Aeromonas hydrophila was noted in summer, while Salmonella typhi showed high prevalence from May to September and in January. 5) In susceptibility tests of isolated organisms, staphylococcus aureus was sensitive to basic antimicrobial agents except for ampicillin. The glucose non-fermenting microorganisms showed high resistance to basic antimicrobial agents in 32.2%. In conclusion, considering the relatively higher incidence of growth of Staphylococcus epidermidis than ideal level indicates that sampling technique should be improved. Secondly, all the hospital staffs in cooperation with Hospital Infection Committee are desirable to pay efforts to decrease the nosocomial infection.
Acinetobacter ; Aeromonas hydrophila ; Ampicillin ; Anti-Infective Agents ; Bacteremia ; Burkholderia cepacia ; Cross Infection ; Enterobacteriaceae ; Escherichia coli ; Glucose ; Gram-Positive Cocci ; Humans ; Incidence ; Prevalence ; Pseudomonas ; Pseudomonas aeruginosa ; Salmonella paratyphi A ; Salmonella typhi ; Serratia ; Staphylococcus aureus ; Staphylococcus epidermidis ; Streptococcus

Malignant hyperthermia is a dramatic syndrome that rarely arises during anesthesia and which is still fatal in the majority of cases. It is a hypermetabolic muscle condition characterized by hyperpyrexia and skeletal muscle rigidity. Any potent inhalation anesthetic agent or any skeletal muscle relaxant can trigger this acute catast rophic reaction. A case is presented of a 28 year old femal with a family history of malignant hyperthermia in herrelatives. She sunderwent repair of a retinal detachment under N2O-O2-halothane withcinduction by thiopenthal and succinylcholine. One and half hours after induction, arrhythmia developed and was followed by unstable blood pressure, hyperpyrexia, muscular rigidity. Anesthesia was ended and vigorous emergency treatment was attempted. But she died postoperatively on the 4th day after anesthesia. The etiologic factors, incidence, clinical feature, prevention, treatment and prognosis of malignant hyperthermia are discussed.
Incidence

Pure red cell aplasia in uncommon disorder characterized by finding of anemia, absence of nucleated red blood cell in the marrow, absence of reticulocytes in the peripheral blood and normal peripheral platelet and leukocytes counts. We experienced one case of pure red cell aplasia associated with hemolytic anemia characterized by hemoglobinuria, reticulocytopenia, and erythroid hypoplasia of the bone marrow. The cause of the illness was not definitely identified, but we concluded that this patient had simultaneous occurrence of PRCA and hemolytic anemia following administration of diphenylhydantoin after craniotomy rather than virus or bacteria induced. The simultaneous occurrence of PRCA and hemolytic anemia in uncommon and the mechanism for diphenylhydantoin induced PRCA and hemolytic anemia is unclear.
Anemia ; Anemia, Hemolytic ; Bacteria ; Blood Platelets ; Bone Marrow ; Craniotomy ; Erythrocytes ; Hemoglobinuria ; Humans ; Leukocytes ; Phenytoin ; Red-Cell Aplasia, Pure* ; Reticulocytes

No abstract available.

PURPOSE: The descriptive study was designed to examine the relationship of eating attitudes to the internalization of sociocultural attitudes, body shape satisfaction, anger and anger expression in college women. METHOD: 247 women were recruited from one college located in Seoul, Korea. The instruments used were the Internalization subscale of SATAQ-3R, BSQ for body shape satisfaction, Spielberger's state trait anger expression inventory-Korean version for anger and anger expression, and the Eating Attitude Test(EAT-26) for eating attitudes. RESULTS: The score of EAT significantly correlated with internalization, state anger, body shape satisfaction, and anger expression except trait anger. The significant predictors of eating attitudes in college women were body shape satisfaction and anger expression, explaining 55% of the variance in eating attitudes. CONCLUSION: This study showed that body shape satisfaction is an important predictor for an eating disorder. Therefore, various programs for cognitive changes correcting the understanding about body and weight need to be developed in the future.
Anger* ; Feeding and Eating Disorders ; Eating* ; Female ; Humans ; Korea ; Seoul

Comflicting results have been reported on whether ketamine potentiates the neuromuscular effect of succinylcholine or other non-depolarizing agents. Notably, there has been no reported clinical evatuation of the influence of ketamine upon the neuromuscular action of vecuronium a new muscle relaxant. The present study was undertaken to estimate the influence of ketamine upon the neuromuscular action of vecuronium with a single bolus injection of ED95. Forty-five ASA class l or ll surgical patients were divided into three groups: l, ll and lll and were given thiopental sodium(5mg/kg), ketamine 3mg/kg and ketamine 5mg/kg as induction agents, respectively. The duration and recovery index of group ll and lll (35.20+/-2.30 and 16.20+/-1.37 min., 52.60+/-3.98 and 25.47+/-3.78min., respectively) were longer than those in group l (24.87+/-1.59 and 10.66 +/- 1.23 min.). But group l had a lower TOF ratio(27.40+/-3.09%) at 75% single twitch recovery than group ll and lll (41.87+/-3.25 and 45.27+/-3.67%, respectively). The increase in duration and the recovery index of group lll were greater than that of group ll. It was concluded that ketamine woudly potentiate the neuromuscular action of vecuronium in a dose-dependent manner. We suggest that combination of ketamine and vecuronium requires careful postoperative neuromuscular monitoring for the recovery from a vecuronium induced neuromuscular block.
Humans ; Ketamine* ; Neuromuscular Agents ; Neuromuscular Blockade* ; Neuromuscular Monitoring ; Succinylcholine ; Thiopental ; Vecuronium Bromide

BACKGROUND: A national health care initiative recommends routine spirometry screening of all smokers over age 45 or patients with respiratory symptoms. In response to the recommendation, new, simple, and inexpensive desktop spirometers for the purpose of promoting widespread spirometric screening were marketed. The performance of these spirometers was evaluated in vivo testing with healthy subjects. However, the clinical setting allows spirometric assessment of various pathologic combinations of flow and volume. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to compare the accuracy of a desktop spirometer to a standard laboratory spirometer, in a clinical setting with?pathologic pulmonary function. METHOD: In a health check-up center, where screening pulmonary funct test was performed using the HI-801 spirometer. Subjects who revealed the ventilation defect in screening spirometry, performed the spirometry again using the?standard Vmax spectra 22d spirometer in a tertiary care hospital pulmonary function laboratory. Pulmonary function test with both spirometer was performed according to the guidelines of the American Thoracic Society. RESULTS: 109 patients were enrolled. Pulmonary function measurements (FVC, FEV1, PEFR, FEF25%-75%) from the HI-801 correlated closely (r=0.94, 0.93, 0.81, 0.84, respectively) with those performed with the Vmax spectra 22d?and showed the good limits of agreement and differences between the 2 devices; FVC +0.35 L, FEV1 +0.16 L, PEFR +1.85 L/s, FEF25%-75% -0.13 L/s. With the exception of FEV1, FEF25%-75%, these differences were significant(p<0.05) but small. Conclusion: The HI-801 spirometer is comparable to the standard laboratory spirometer, Vmax spectra 22d, with high accurary for FEV1 and FVC and?acceptable differences for clinical use.
Delivery of Health Care ; Humans ; Mass Screening* ; Peak Expiratory Flow Rate ; Respiratory Function Tests ; Spirometry* ; Tertiary Healthcare ; Ventilation

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: It is particularly difficult to differentiate dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) from the related dementias of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD). Few studies have been designed to comparatively analyze detailed neuropsychological assessments of DLB patients and patients with AD and PDD. METHODS: Three groups of patients participated in this study: 10 with DLB, 76 with AD, and 17 with PDD, who had been diagnosed as probable DLB, AD, and PDD, respectively, according to the clinical criteria of the consortium on DLB, National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Diseases and Stroke/Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorder Association, and the clinical diagnostic criteria for PDD. All patients were evaluated by careful neurological examination with detailed neuropsychological testing. RESULTS: Significant differences among the three groups were found for attention, memory, and executive function, which included tasks of backward digit span, three-word recall, verbal delayed recall, and the Stroop test. Post hoc analysis revealed that the deficiencies of attention on the digit span task were greater in the DLB group than in the AD and PDD groups. The scores for episodic verbal memory tasks were significantly lower in the DLB and AD groups than in the PDD group. The performance in frontal executive function, as indicated by the Stroop test, was significantly worse in the DLB and PDD groups than in the AD group. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the present study show that the pattern of cognitive dysfunction, in terms of attention, episodic memory, and executive functions, differ between patients with DLB and patients with AD and PDD.
Alzheimer Disease ; Cognition ; Dementia ; Executive Function ; Humans ; Lewy Bodies ; Memory ; Memory, Episodic ; Neurologic Examination ; Neuropsychology ; Parkinson Disease ; Stroop Test

BACKGROUND: Sleep disturbances are very common in the patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and several sleep disorders are known to have pathological associations with PD, such as REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD), restless legs syndrome (RLS) and periodic limb movement disorder (PLMD). The authors conducted this study to find clinical characteristics and impact of sleep disorders in the patients with PD. METHODS: A total of 97 patients with PD (41 males, age 61.0+/-9.3 years, Hoehn and Yahr stage 1-4) were recruited. We interviewed bed partners of parkinsonian patients for sleep disorders with structured questionnaires and compared interview results with the clinical characteristics of Parkinson's disease and the results of cognitive function tests. RESULTS: RLS (24.7%), RBD (19.6%), sleep apnea (15.5%) and PLMD (13.4%) were frequently reported by bed partners of the patients. PLMD, RBD and apnea were significantly increased in male patients. Parkinsonian characteristics of the patients (dose of L-dopa, predominant motor symptom, duration of symptom and treatment, use of dopamine agonist, Hoehn and Yahr stage, and severity of motor symptoms) were not related with sleep disorders and daytime sleepiness, but the bed partners reported decreased arousal and increased daytime sleepiness in the patients with sleep disorders. The cognitive profiles of the patients showed impaired memory function in the sleepy patients. CONCLUSIONS: We could not find the correlations between sleep disorders and the clinical characteristics of PD. But, sleep disorders were prevalent in PD patients and caused daytime sleepiness and cognitive dysfunctions.
Apnea ; Arousal ; Cognition ; Dopamine Agonists ; Humans ; Levodopa ; Male ; Memory ; Nocturnal Myoclonus Syndrome ; Parkinson Disease ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; REM Sleep Behavior Disorder ; Restless Legs Syndrome ; Sleep Apnea Syndromes ; Sleep Wake Disorders

BACKGROUND: There has no known epidemiologic survey on the frequency of complementary-alternative medicine (CAM) use in the treatment of adult asthma in Korea. This study examined the current use of CAM by asthma patients in Korea. METHODS: One hundred adults with asthma, who had been admitted to Kyunghee university hospital between January 2000 and December 2003, were enrolled in this survey. They received a structured questionnaire interview and a clinical assessment of prevalence and pattern of CAM use. RESULTS: 53% patients had an experience of at least one type of CAM during their asthma management. Users of CAM had more hospital visits than those who had never used CAM(1.46+/-0.68 vs. 2.11+/-1.20, p=0.001). Those in their 50th decades had more experience of CAM (80%) than the other age groups. The methods of CAM used by our patients are as follows: Diet/nutritional therapy in 35 patients(69%), herbal therapy in 28 patients(53%), acupuncture in 9 patients(17%), moxa treatment in 6 patients(11%), breathing exercises in 1 patient(2%). CONCLUSIONS: More than 50% of patients with bronchial asthma have used CAM. A more detailed and large scaled study will be needed to define the actual status of the use of CAM in the treatment for asthma. Inaddition, further research on the scientific validation of the clinical efficacy of CAM in asthma management should be followed.
Acupuncture ; Adult ; Asthma ; Breathing Exercises ; Epidemiology ; Humans ; Korea* ; Phytotherapy ; Prevalence ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Tertiary Healthcare*