Stress and trauma research has traditionally focused on the negative sequela of adversity. Recently, research has begun to focus on positive outcomes, specifically posttraumatic growth (PTG)-"positive change experienced as a result of the struggle with trauma"-which emphasizes the transformative potential of one's experiences with highly stressful events and circumstances. For evaluation of PTG, resilience is very important. Resilience refers to a person's ability to successfully adapt to acute stress, trauma or more chronic forms of adversity, maintaining psychological well-being. This article introduces several measurement scales for assessment of PTG and resilience. In addition, we suggest psychological techniques for facilitating PTG focusing on the relationship with adaptation after trauma. Finally, we discuss the applicability of a therapeutic approach for PTG in clinical practice. The systemic review of this article will provide further directions for PTG and resilience.
Life Change Events ; Psychological Techniques ; Psychology ; Weights and Measures

PURPOSE: The SPAN, which is acronym standing for its four components: Startle, Physiological arousal, Anger, and Numbness, is a short post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) screening scale. This study sought to develop and validate a Korean version of the SPAN (SPAN-K). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Ninety-three PTSD patients (PTSD group), 73 patients with non-psychotic psychiatric disorders (psychiatric control group), and 88 healthy participants (normal control group) were recruited for this study. Participants completed a variety of psychiatric assessments including the SPAN-K, the Davidson Trauma Scale (DTS), the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS), and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). RESULTS: Cronbach's alpha and test-retest reliability values for the SPAN-K were both 0.80. Mean SPAN-K scores were 10.06 for the PTSD group, 4.94 for the psychiatric control group, and 1.42 for the normal control group. With respect to concurrent validity, correlation coefficients were 0.87 for SPAN-K vs. CAPS total scores (p<0.001) and 0.86 for SPAN-K vs. DTS scores (p<0.001). Additionally, correlation coefficients were 0.31 and 0.42 for SPAN-K vs. STAI-S and STAI-T, respectively. Receiver operating characteristic analysis of SPAN-K showed good diagnostic accuracy with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.87. The SPAN-K showed the highest efficiency at a cutoff score of 7, with a sensitivity of 0.83, a specificity of 0.81, positive predictive value (PPV) of 0.88, and negative predictive value (NPV) of 0.73. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that the SPAN-K had good psychometric properties and may be a useful instrument for rapid screening of PTSD patients.
Humans ; *Psychological Techniques ; Republic of Korea ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/*diagnosis/psychology

Mindfulness is a process in which all thoughts, feelings, sensations, and all phenomena that happen to me are uncritically recognized as they are, so that they are eventually accepted and released without identifying or automatically responding to them. The clinical effects of mindfulness-based therapy have already been demonstrated in several studies. However, consistent results have not been reported for the mechanism of mindfulness-based treatment. Thus, this review aimed to describe a systematic review of the literature and research on the mechanisms of mindfulness-based interventions. Experienced meditators showed a physiological change in a ‘wakeful hypometabolic state’ during mindfulness meditation. In mindfulness meditation, it is known that certain areas other than brain activation during relaxation are additionally activated, particularly activation of fronto-limbic and fronto-parietal neural networks. The psychological mechanisms include meta-cognitive awareness, emotion regulation, reduction of automatic and self-referential thinking, concentration control, self-compassion, improvement of value clarification and self-regulation, exposure, extinction, and reconsolidation. Of the brain regions with changes in activity associated with mindfulness meditation, prefrontal cortex, the default mode network including cortical midline structures were associated with emotion regulation, concentration control, and reduction of automatic and self-referential thinking. In addition, brain regions associated with mindfulness meditation have been reported in the hippocampus, amygdala, and medical frontal cortices associated with memory reconsolidation and fear extinction. Thus, mindfulness-based interventions have a psychological and neurobiological effect with a special mechanism different from other psychological interventions, so that mindfulness based intervention can be an effective therapeutic intervention with a different mechanism from other psychological techniques.
Amygdala ; Brain ; Frontal Lobe ; Hippocampus ; Meditation ; Memory ; Mindfulness ; Prefrontal Cortex ; Psychological Techniques ; Relaxation ; Self-Control ; Sensation ; Thinking

No abstract available.
Electroconvulsive Therapy* ; Oxidative Stress*

No abstract available.
Electroconvulsive Therapy* ; Prolactin*

Background: Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe psychotic disease with high incidence. Treatment of schizophrenia with neuroleptic is a major medical advance, but sometime its result is still limited. Objective: To study the effect of electroconvulsive therapy (EC) in treatment of paranoid schizophrenic patients. Subject and methods: 101 paranoid schizophrenic patients treated by neuroleptic alone or neuroleptic combined EC, were treated in the Mental Department of Hospital 103 and Nam Dinh Mental Hospital from May, 2006 to June, 2007. Results and Conclusion: All 100% of the patients had a positive response to EC; the mean times of EC were 7.63\xb11.4 times for one. The regression of hallucination was observed after 4.6\xb11.49 times of EC; delusion after 4.96\xb11.4 times; suicide attempt after 3.25\xb10.96 times and refusing to eat after 4.96\xb12.1 times of EC; insomnia disappeared after 4.96\xb12.1 times of EC. Some side effects of the EC therapy: 100% of patients had orientation disorder; headache with light and moderate level accounted for 69.65% and 26.79%, respectively. Combination therapy made patients more stable, compared to neuroleptic therapy alone (p<0.05).
paranoid schizophrenia ; electroconvulsive therapy

No abstract available.
Electroconvulsive Therapy ; Lacerations ; Tongue

No abstract available.
Circadian Rhythm* ; Electroconvulsive Therapy*

Strabismus is defined as an ocular misalignment. Since it can cause not only impaired visual function but also social handicap and tremendous emotional stress, the care of patients with strabismus should include psychological and social aspects. Although strabismus is one of the major fields in pediatric ophthalmology and neuro-ophthalmology, its precise mechanism and etiology are still unknown. It can be inherited from strabismic parents, or be derived from the anomalous structure, neurologic deficits, and refractive errors. The diagnosis of strabismus can be made by covering one eye, and the degree of strabismus can be quantified by the alternate prism cover test. Recently MRI is used widely for the diagnosis of various anomalous orbital and muscular structures, especially to investigate heterotopia of extraocular muscle pulley. The treatment modalities for strabismus are either surgical or nonsurgical. Surgical treatments can be made by recession or resection of the involved extraocular muscle. The adjustable suture technique was introduced in 1970s, which has been the gold standard among surgical treatment modalities. Nonsurgical treatments include prism, glasses, bifocal lenses, and drugs. A young strabismic patient may have amblyopia and decreased stereoacuity due to abnormal interaction between the sound eye and the deviating eye. Once amblyopia is detected, immediate treatment is needed to correct the visual dysfunction. Recent efforts to elucidate the mechanisms of strabismus are believed to unravel the mysterious pathophysiology in the near future.
Amblyopia ; Diagnosis* ; Eyeglasses ; Glass ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Neurologic Manifestations ; Ocular Motility Disorders ; Ophthalmology ; Orbit ; Parents ; Refractive Errors ; Strabismus* ; Stress, Psychological ; Suture Techniques

Although autopsy studies suggest that malignant pericardial effusion is present in up to 15% of the patients suffering with malignancies, symptomatic pericardial effusion presenting as a first manifestation of systemic recurrence in a breast cancer patient is a rare condition. Symptomatic malignant pericardial effusion requires prompt attention and intervention since it can lead to the cardiac tamponade. Treatment of symptomatic pericardial effusion includes pericardial decompression and systemic or intrapericardial chemotherapy. We recently experienced a patient with early breast cancer who developed cardiac tamponade from malignant pericardial effusion as a first manifestation of systemic recurrence 4 years after her initial surgery. The patient was treated with percutaneous pericardiocentesis and she subsequently received systemic trastuzumab. After 6 cycles of trastuzumab, the follow-up CT showed complete disappearance of the pericardial effusion and the mediastinal lymph nodes.
Antibodies, Monoclonal, Humanized ; Autopsy ; Breast ; Breast Neoplasms ; Cardiac Tamponade ; Decompression ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Pericardial Effusion ; Pericardial Window Techniques ; Pericardiocentesis ; Recurrence ; Stress, Psychological ; Trastuzumab