OBJECTIVES: The psychophysiologic response pattern between healthy subjects and patients with generalized anxiety disorder, and the relationship among anxiety rating scales and those patterns in patients were examined. METHODS: Twenty-three patients with generalized anxiety disorder(AD) and 23 healthy subjects were evaluated by Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety(HRSA)and State- Trait Anxiety Inventory before baseline stressful tasks, Subjective Units of Distress were evaluated just before baseline period, immediately after stressful tasks, at the end of the entire procedure, and psychophysiologic measures, i.e., skin temperature(ST), electromyographic activity(EMG), heart rate(HR), electrodermal response(EDR) during baseline & rest and during two psychologically stressful tasks (mental arithmentic, TM; talk about a stressful event, TT) were also evaluated. RESULTS: 1) AD group showed significantly higher EMG level during rest after stressful tasks and higher HR level during all period except TM compared to control group. 2) AD group showed lower change in the startle response(SR) of ST, in the SR & the recovery response(RR) of EMG during TM, and in the RR of EDR immediately after TM than control group. AD group showed that the RR of EDR was significantly lower than the SR during stressful tasks. 3) We found that there was significantly negative correlation between state anxiety and the RR of EDR after TT in AD group. We also found that there were significantly positive correlations between HRSA score and the SRs of EDR during stressful tasks, and between state anxiety and the SR of EDR during TT. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that patients with generalized anxiety disorder show higher autonomic arousal than healthy subjects and decreased physiologic flexibility or reduced autonomic flexibility.
Anxiety Disorders* ; Anxiety* ; Arousal ; Heart ; Humans ; Korea* ; Life Change Events ; Pliability ; Skin ; Weights and Measures

No abstract available.
Ureter*

No abstract available.
Diagnosis* ; Humans ; Hydrocephalus* ; Infant* ; Infant, Newborn*

Recent studies have reported that obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms are highly prevalent in schizophrenia, and schizophrenic patients with OC symptoms have a poorer clinical course compared to those without OC symptoms. In spite of many previous case reports, treatment of OC symptoms in schizophrenia has not been systematically studied. We report a patient with chronic schizophrenia who had obsessive symptoms such as bizarre, stereotyped behaviors. Treatment with olanzapine and risperidone, resulted in partial response for his psychotic symptoms, respectively. The obsessive symptoms, however, persisted and fluoxetine was added to the risperidone regimen. After 4 weeks of combination treatment, fluoxetine was titrated up to 80 mg/day and his obsessive symptoms became less in frequency and intensity. After 7 weeks on combination treatment of risperidone and fluoxetine, obsessive symptoms resulted in a significant reduction. On the 20 months of following, he remained in a recovered state and had been treated with risperidone 4 mg/day, and fluoxetine 20 mg/day.
Fluoxetine ; Humans ; Risperidone ; Schizophrenia ; Stereotyped Behavior

No abstract available.

We experienced clinical improvement by clozapine(mean maintenance dosage: 100mg/day) and antiparkinsonian medication in 68-year-old man, diagnosed both secondary parkinsonism and delusional disorder. This result supports previous reports that clozapine may effectively treat parkinsonism with psychosis.
Aged ; Clozapine* ; Delusions* ; Humans ; Parkinson Disease, Secondary ; Parkinsonian Disorders* ; Psychotic Disorders ; Schizophrenia, Paranoid*

OBJECTIVES: Impaired hearing is a prevalent occupational hazard, not only in industry, but also in the armed forces. In military life, noise has unusual characteristics, and constitutes a serious hazard to hearing. The aim of this study was to analyze the hearing threshold data in order to compare the hearing loss among shipyard workers, representing different workers, and a military service background. METHODS: A cross-sectional audiological survey, combined with a questionnaire study, was conducted on a stratified random sample of 440 shipyard workers, with long-term exposure to noise. The employees were divided into four groups, according to their working and military service backgrounds, in relation to their exposure to noise. RESULTS: As expected, the working and military noise exposure group (Group I) had significantly poorer hearing than the other groups. The high frequencies (2-8 kHz) showed the greatest difference in terms of poorer hearing in both ears. The prevalence of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) was highest in Group I. A logistic regression analysis was applied to determine the dependence of the NIHL in relation to age, smoking, drinking, working duration, ear protection, past history of ear diseases, and working and military service backgrounds, on the noise exposure. The important factors found to be related to the NIHL, in relation to noise exposure were: age, work duration, and working and military service backgrounds. The adjusted odds ratio estimates for NIHL in the right ear were 4.5 times greater (95% CI 1.7-11.6) for the military noise exposed group, and 7.9 times greater (95% CI 2.0-31.3) for the working noise exposed group than in the controls. The hearing thresholds at the pure-tone average and 4 kHz were significantly increased with age and work duration with both the working and military service backgrounds. CONCLUSIONS: From these results, specific preventive programs were planned, which should be assessed by epidemiological surveillance of the military noise exposed population.
Arm ; Drinking ; Ear ; Ear Diseases ; Hearing Loss ; Hearing Loss, Noise-Induced ; Hearing* ; Humans ; Logistic Models ; Military Personnel* ; Noise* ; Odds Ratio ; Prevalence ; Smoke ; Smoking

No abstract available.

BACKGROUND: The functional dyspepsia gives rise to such a symptom similar to peptic ulcer without showing a noticeable lesion(e.g, gastric or duodenal ulcer) by endoscopy or upper GI serises, and it has been known that this is about twice as many as the peptic ulcer. However, there is no exact theory about its pathophysiology and it is suggested that multiple factors including genetic, physiologic, psychologic, environmental factors are engaged. Especially, in respect to the occurrence of functional dyspepsia and psychological factors, there have been many clinical studies over the world. But, we still need more studies in this country, therefore, this study has been initiated to give help patients of functional dyspepsia, invest.igating their characteristic traits through MMPI. METHODS: From March to September in 1996, the patients who visited the family medicine out-patients department of St. Marys hospital of Catholic Medical College were sampled in this study. There were 46 patients having a similar symptoms to peptic ulcer without showing pathologic lesions by endoscopy. Through an interview and some basic tests, the 41 controls who had no dyspeptic symptoms and were not affected to a noticeable physical or physiological disorders were selected for the normal reference group. The standardized MMPI of our country was applied to the whole object groups to get a result. Then each average value of the measure(mean T-score) was calculated, and the differences of the average value were analyzed by the t-test and chi-square test. And the psychological pattern analysis was done. RESULTS: In demographic aspects, there were no significant differences between the two groups. The mean T score for each measure of the two groups falls within the normal ranges with their values being of between 30 to 70. And the average of L, F, and K measure, known as the validity measure, did not give a significant differences between the two groups. The measure of Hs, D, and Hy have appeared significantly high in the patients group(p<0.01) and the Pd measure, too(p<0.05). While Mf, Pa, and Ma measure have not shown a significant differences, Pt, Sc, and Si measure have very significant differences(p<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: In the patient group with the functional dyspepsia, the measures of Hs, D, and Hy where they indicate a neurotic pattern have shown a very significantly high point as well as those of Pd, Pt, Sc, and Si where they indicate a psychotic pattern. This reveals that in the group of the functional dyspepsia neurotic or psychotic trends to attribute. However, it is very hard to define the characteristics of a group with just one test, so further study with more variable test will be necessary.
Dyspepsia* ; Endoscopy ; Humans ; MMPI* ; Outpatients ; Peptic Ulcer ; Psychology ; Reference Values

We report a case of 48 years-old male bipolar disorder patient with acute kidney injury due to severe lithium intoxication. He was taking lithium 300 mg per day but suddenly ingested all 30 tablets of lithium 300 mg (total 9,000 mg) at one sitting to commit suicide. On his arrival at the emergency room, the serum lithium concentration was 12.47 mEq/L. Thereafter he was treated with hemodialysis four times for 4-4.5 hour per session and recovered without any prominent sequela. The serum lithium level checked 9 days after hemodialysis was 0.1 mEq/L. Therefore we suggest that clinicians should consider such a strategy as mandatory hemodialysis in a patient with severe kidney intoxication when serum lithium concentrations are very high or rapidly increasing.
Acute Kidney Injury ; Bipolar Disorder ; Emergencies ; Humans ; Kidney ; Lithium ; Male ; Renal Dialysis ; Suicide ; Tablets