BACKGROUND: Recently elderly people have increased in Korea and increased demands of medical service. This study was carried out to identify diseases and health service utilization patterns of geriatric inpatients to provide better understanding and basis planning to meet the needs of expanding geriatric population. METHOD: We use data of `Patient Survey in Korea` in 1999 and analyzed characteristics of disease structure and utilization patterns of health care service of 54,013 cases of discharged patients aged 65 years or more. RESULT: The proportion of the elderly in total discharged patients is 14.7%. Male to female ratio is 1:1.3 and most common age group was between 65 and 69 years old. 84.2% of elderly patients were admitted at secondary or tertiary health care facilities. The most common disease in geriatric inpatients is malig- nancy in male and vascular disease in female. The average duration of hospitalization is 14.2 days. They stay longer than the nation wide average hospital length and stay longest when they are admitted by mental and behavioral disorders. CONCLUSION: Geriatric patients are admitted mostly with chronic degenerative diseases such as neoplasm and vascular disease. Elders prefer to be admitted to tertiary hospitals and oriental hospitals. They stay more in hospital.
Aged ; Delivery of Health Care ; Female ; Health Services* ; Hospitalization ; Humans ; Inpatients* ; Korea ; Male ; Tertiary Care Centers ; Vascular Diseases

No abstract available.
Folliculitis*

The authors have used a B-mode real-time sector scanner and a 10-MHz probe for measurement of the skin thickness at 21 different sites in healthy Koreans. Subjects consisted of 35 adults(17 males, 18 females) who were divided into three age groups .' young(20 39 years, 12 subjects), middle-aged(40 59 years, 13 subjects), and old(over 60 years, 10 subjects). The results were as follows. 1, The measurements of the skin thickness in examined sites varied from 1.99 to 4.59 milimeters . flexor aspect of the upper arm, dorsum of the hand, extensor aspect of the forearm and flexor aspect of the forearm were thinner, and heel, upper back, metatarsus were thicker than other sites. 2, The skin thickness in males was generally thicker than that in females '. cheek, extensor aspect of the thigh were highly significantly thicker (p<0.01), and chest, upper back, lower back, flexor aspect of the upper arm and extensor aspect of the lower leg were significantly thicker(p< 0.05) in males than in females, 3. The skin was thickest in the old age groups.
Arm ; Cheek ; Female ; Forearm ; Hand ; Heel ; Humans ; Leg ; Male ; Metatarsus ; Skin* ; Thigh ; Thorax ; Ultrasonography*

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Intraoperative echocardiography (IOE), mostly done by transesophageal methods, provides an important means of accessing cardiac structure and function during cardiac and noncardiac surgery. The purpose of this study was to determine the role of IOE by identifying the frequency of the use of IOE during cardiac surgery, the rate of second pump operations determined by IOE findings, and the results of the operations. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Sixty-five patients (93 lesions) underwent cardiac surgery with the concomitant IOE done by a cardiologist in a single institution between March 1997 and October 1998. The data was collected retrospectively by reviewing the hospital records and IOE videotapes. IOE was applied to 18.9% of total cardiac operations, primarily being used in MV surgery (48.4%). A pre-pump IOE was done in 2 cases and the post-pump procedure was done in the remainder. A second pump operation was performed in 4 cases (6.25%) and all of these were found to be successful after immediate re-operation. CONCLUSION: IOE was primarily used in valve operations, particularly in procedures involving the mitral valve. IOE appears to be useful in determining the immediate results following cardiac surgery and may contribute to determining the prognosis of the patient.
Echocardiography ; Echocardiography, Transesophageal* ; Hospital Records ; Humans ; Mitral Valve ; Monitoring, Intraoperative ; Prognosis ; Retrospective Studies ; Thoracic Surgery ; Videotape Recording

Background: Postoperative sore throat is a complaint after general anesthesia of multifactorial etiology. The laryngeal mask airway (LMA) reduces sore throat and discomfort during maintenance of the airway and make patients more comfortable. The purpose of this study was to compare effect of patient's position during operation on postoperative sore throat after the use of LMA. Methods: The fifty three patients were randomly divided into two groups. Group 1 (n=30) was underwent general anesthesia with supine position and group 2 (n=23) with prone position. After the LMA was positioned in the hypopharynx and the cuff inflated, fiberoptic laryngoscope was immediately passed down through the LMA. Number of attempts, degree of postoperative sore throat and other complications were also noted. Results: The incidence of postoperative sore throat after the use of LMA was 10% in supine position and 4% in prone position. But the difference between the groups was not statistically significant. All of the reported sore throats were rated as mild. Conclusions: Postoperative sore throat after the use of LMA is mild and the incidence is not affected by the prone position during the operation.
Anesthesia, General ; Humans ; Hypopharynx ; Incidence ; Laryngeal Masks* ; Laryngoscopes ; Pharyngitis* ; Prone Position* ; Supine Position

PURPOSE: This study was conducted to determine the factors which affect the resilience and quality of life for cancer patients with radiotheraphy. METHODS: Collecting data was conducted by self-administered questionnaire that 205 cancer patients with radiation therapy in one university hospital participated from 15th to 31st May 2015. The data analyzed by SPSS v18 and AMOS v18. RESULTS: This research found that the side-effect of treatments, social support, self esteem, depression, uncertainty and resilience are verified to be the variables having not only direct but indirect influence on the quality of life of patients receiving radiotheraphy. The side-effect of treatments was found to have direct influence on the quality of life of patients receiving was, and social support was found to have indirect influence on resilience through uncertainty and self esteem, and resilience was found to have direct influence on the quality of life. for cancer patients. CONCLUSION: It's necessary to come up with the approaches to develop the realistic practice guideline in order to raise the quality of life of patients receiving radiotheraphy, and to lower social support, self esteem, uncertainty in order to have higher resilience.
Depression ; Humans ; Quality of Life* ; Radiotherapy* ; Self Concept ; Uncertainty

The errors in orthognathic surgery can occur during the preoperative preparations including the model surgery, but till now there's been some lack of reserches about them. So we wanted to verify the accuracies in measurements used in model surgery. We compared the accuracy of measurements by vernier calipers, which has been the main measurement tool for conventional model surgery, and that by height gauge, which is recently claimed to be more accurate, with 3 dimensional coordinate analyzer. We could have following results and have a plan to use them for the invention of new model surgery techniques. 1. The measurement errors in Group 1, which mean the difference between "the measurements by 3-D analyzer" and "the measurements by height gauge", were small enough with the range of 0.1~0.2mm in all planes. 2. The mean error in Group 2, which is the differences between the measurements of 3-D analyzer and those of vernier calipers, was 1.1mm. 3. The measurement errors in Group 2 were variable according to the factors including the differences of individuality and expertness of each measurers. But in case of Group 1, they were small and not variable by the expertness. 4. The measurements were more accurate at the points in anterior teeth than in molar teeth in Group 1 and 2. 5. The errors after model surgery increased remarkably, compared with those before surgery in Group 2. And the situation was different in Group 1 in that errors decreased after surgery. Accoding to these results, it assumed that the measurements with height gauge during the model surgery for orthognathic surgery are accurate enough and can be maintained, regardless of complexity of models, individuality, or expertness of measurers.
Individuality ; Inventions ; Molar ; Orthognathic Surgery ; Tooth

Angiomyolipomas (AML) are generally known as benign tumors. The kidney is the most common location of this tumor, and the liver is reported as the second most common site. Occurrence in other tissues is extremely rare. For instance, some cases of AML originating from the nasal cavity have been previously reported. We describe an AML case arising from the nasal cavity of a 56-year-old man. The patient had been complaining of nasal obstruction and foreign body sensation in the nasopharynx and was initially treated with preoperative angio-embolization. AML was then totally removed by endoscopic surgery without complications. He has been asymptomatic and has had no evidence of recurrence for 2 months after surgery.
Angiomyolipoma ; Embolization, Therapeutic ; Endoscopy ; Humans ; Kidney ; Liver ; Middle Aged ; Nasal Cavity ; Nasal Obstruction ; Nasopharynx ; Recurrence

Cancer of the vulva accounts for approximately 0.5% of all gynecologic malignancies. At diagnosis, one-third of these cases is detected in an advanced stage (FIGO stages III, IV), and local extension of primary vulvar cancer may involve adjacent midline structures such as the clitoris, urethra, vagina, and anus. Initial surgical therapy of such locally advanced primary cancers may compromise the functional integrity of midline structures, necessitating ultraradical surgery including pelvic exenteration. In view of the relatively elderly age of the patients and the morbidity of this ultraradical dissection, concomitant chemoradiation therapy - that the efficacy had been proven in head and neck cancer, anal cancer has approached for patients with locally advanced vulvar cancer. We experienced a case of stage III vulvar cancer patient, who underwent concomitant chemoradiation therapy with 5-fluorouracil(FU) and cisplatin and who showed complete response. So, we report this case with brief review of the literatures.
Aged ; Anal Canal ; Anus Neoplasms ; Cisplatin ; Clitoris ; Diagnosis ; Female ; Head and Neck Neoplasms ; Humans ; Pelvic Exenteration ; Urethra ; Vagina ; Vulvar Neoplasms*