OBJECTIVES: This study was designed to evaluate the problems of pre-hospital Emergency medical care system (EMS) in workplace. We analysed 25 fatal work-place injuries during the recent 4 years and the work-place EMS of 8 enterprises located in Masan-city, Changwon-city and Kuje-island. METHODS: The safety managers and the members of Dept. of safety in the labor unions were interviewed about the work-place EMS. And we investigated on the injury reports, the work-place medical-room records and the medical records of emergency center for fatal 25 cases. RESULTS: The enterprises had the at-risk machines and processes, volatile materials and high-altitude working processes. There were duty doctors in only 3 enterprises but a few duty nurses or health-care providers in the others. The time spent for the education to the workers on safety was 24hrs/yr in 3 enterprises in 1998 but less than Bhrs in the others. There were medical service center in all enterprises but the ambulances in three. The time for activation of the ambulance was ranging from 5 minutes to 10 minutes in 6 enterprises, and from 10 minutes to 30 minutes in two. The patient transportation to the emergency center was possible within 30 minutes in all enterprises but there were no equipments for airway maintenance and shock management in all enterprises. The 15 (60%) fatal injuries were occurred at one enterprise. The 64% of casualties had the duration of job-employment more than 10yrs and the 68% were suffered the typical type of work-place injury as descending injuries, collisions and falls. Most of all primary calls for rescue were concentrated on the fire-service agencies. But in 85% of fatal injtories, the tome for the activation of ambulance was more than 10 minutes and no emergency care was taken in the field in 48 percent of casualtles. The transportation time to the emergency center was more than 30 minutes in 50 percent. It toolk from injury to death was less than one hour in the 40 percent of all cases, and from one hour to four in the 50 percent. The causes of death in the 68 percent were the head-and-neck injuries or thoracic injuries. CONCLUSIONS: We found that there was Insufficiency of the education associated with work-place injury for workers, manpower and facilities, equipments related to the work-place EMS, the problems of the delay in transportation system.
Ambulances ; Cause of Death ; Education ; Emergencies* ; Emergency Medical Services* ; Humans ; Labor Unions ; Medical Records ; Shock ; Thoracic Injuries ; Transportation

INTRODUCTION: Excessive daytime sleepiness and cataplexy are key features of narcolepsy. Modafinil is psychostimulant used in the treatment of narcolepsy. In this study, we evaluated effects of modafinil on nocturnal sleep structure and sleep latency in multiple sleep latency test and clinical features. METHODS: Twelve narcoleptic patients (7 male, age: 22.9 +/- 2.6 yrs) were participated in the study. All of them had done nocturnal polysomnography (nPSG), multiple sleep latency test (MSLT), clinical symptoms scales and have repeated same procedure after taking 200 mg of modafinil. We have done linear mixed model analysis to describe effects of group, medication and nap time on these measures. RESULTS: Modafinil did not affect clinical scales except PSQI which had been reduced after medication. In this study, Modafinil reduced total sleep time, sleep efficiency and increased wake after sleep onset and percent of arousal during sleep in nocturnal polysomnography and prolonged mean sleep latency in multiple sleep latency tests in both group. DISCUSSION: Modafinil has stimulant effect of central nervous system but its effect on night sleep is less than other psychostimulants such as methylphenidate. We ascertained that modafinil affected total sleep time, sleep efficiency and percent of wake during sleep but did not effect on sleep structure. Modafinil was effective in the management of day time sleepiness. Modafinil can enhance alertness of control group without day time sleepiness.
Arousal ; Cataplexy ; Central Nervous System ; Humans ; Male ; Methylphenidate ; Narcolepsy* ; Polysomnography ; Weights and Measures

INTRODUCTION: Detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) is used as a way of studying nonlinearity of EEG. In this study, DFA is applied on sleep EEG of normal subjects to look into its nonlinearity in terms of EEG channels and sleep stages. METHOD: Twelve healthy young subjects (age: 23.8+/-2.5 years old, male:female=7:5) have undergone nocturnal polysomnography (nPSG). EEG from nPSG was classified in terms of its channels and sleep stages and was analyzed by DFA. Scaling exponents (SEs) yielded by DFA were compared using linear mixed model analysis. RESULTS: Scaling exponents (SEs) of sleep EEG were distributed around 1 showing long term temporal correlation and self-similarity. SE of C3 channel was bigger than that of O1 channel. As sleep stage progressed from stage 1 to slow wave sleep, SE increased accordingly. SE of stage REM sleep did not show significant difference when compared with that of stage 1 sleep. CONCLUSION: SEs of Normal sleep EEG showed nonlinear characteristic with scale-free fluctuation, long-range temporal correlation, self-similarity and self-organized criticality. SE from DFA differentiated sleep stages and EEG channels. It can be a useful tool in the research with sleep EEG.
Electroencephalography* ; Polysomnography ; Sleep Stages ; Sleep, REM

No abstract available.
Aneurysm, False* ; Arteries* ; Fractures, Bone*

No abstract available.
Humans ; Leukocytes*

No abstract available.
Adenomyosis* ; Humans ; Uterus*

No abstract available.
Adenomyosis* ; Humans ; Uterus*

No abstract available.
Female ; Herpes Simplex* ; Humans ; Mastitis*

BACKGROUND: During normal wound healing the formation of scars and fibrous tissue occurs, which consists largely of collagen fibril, but excessive fibrosis and scar formation become clinical problems. Collagen remodelling during scar formation is dependent on both continued collagen synthesis and collagen catabolism. Halofuginone, a plant alkaloid, is known to inhibit collagen type I synthesis at the transcriptional level. OBJECTIVE: The purposes of this study were to investigate the effects of topical application of halofuginone on the healing of wounds. METHOD: Topical solutions containing halofuginone of variable concentrations were applied on the full-thickness excisional wounds of hairless mice and 0.1% halofuginone ointments applied on the suture site of rats and the normal skin of hairless mice daily. In addition, we performed a one-time intradermal injection of 0.1% halofuginone solution on the normal skin of the hairless mice. We examined the collagen content of the skin of hairless mice and rats treated with halofuginone solutions and ointments during the healing process by performing hematoxylin-eosin and Masson's trichrome stains. We assessed, from time to time, the change in the full-thickness excisional wound size of hairless mice treated with halofuginone solutions of variable concentrations during the healing process and observed clinically the healing process of hairless mice with the full-thickness excisional wound. RESULT: 1. The wound size after daily application of 0.001% and 0.1% halofuginone solutions on the full-thickness excisional wounds of hairless mice decreased more slowly in comparison with the control group (p < 0.05).
Animals ; Cicatrix ; Collagen ; Collagen Type I ; Coloring Agents ; Fibrosis ; Injections, Intradermal ; Metabolism ; Mice ; Mice, Hairless ; Ointments ; Plants ; Rats ; Skin ; Sutures ; Wound Healing* ; Wounds and Injuries*

Normal lymphocyte transfer (NLT) test is composed of two peaks of delaycd. hypersensitivity reaction of erythema and/or induration developed at the site of intradermal inoculatioa of allogenic lymphocyte. It has been suggested that NLT test is a px.siblc homograft raaction, how var tlv exact mecha.nism is remained to be resolved. In leprosy, there has been accumulating evidenc. indicating defective cell mediated. immunity detected by varioua immunological tests. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the immune capability of patients with leprosy using NLT test. A total of 20 hea,lthy volunteers, 20 lepromatous and 22 tuberculoid leprosy patients who were under antileprosy chemotherapy with DDS for varying periods, entered this study. Lymphocytes from hepatitis associati antigen (HAA) negative donor were isolated with Ficoll- Hypaque density gradient method and the cell concentration was adjusted by normal saline so as to give 2, 5 million cells per 0. 1 ml. Each recipient was given 0. 1 ml lymphocyte suspension on the flexor surface of th right forearm intrad.ermally using 1 ml tuberculi n syringe with a 26 gauge needle. The appearance and the size of induration was checked daily for 2 weeks. In this atudy, the NLT reaction pattem was classified as follows: a. normal pattem showing the first peak and second peak of reaction. b. first peak only showing the first peak, but no second peak, of reaction. c. flat pattem showing neitger the first peak nor the second peak of reaction The results were as follows: 1. There were normal pattem in sixteen persons(80%) and first peak only in 4 persons(20%) among twenty healthy human volunteers. 2. There were normal pattem in four patients(20%), first peak only in six patients(30%) and flat pattem in ten patients(50%) among twenty letromatous leprosy patients. 3. There were normal pattem in twelve patients(54.5%), first peak only in eight patients(36.4%) and flat pattem in two patients(9.1%) among twenty-two tuberouloid leprosy patients. These findings suggest that NLT test may be useful in evaluating the immune capability in leprosy and host factor in belived to be important in the development of both first and second peaks of NLT test.
Allografts ; Diatrizoate ; Drug Therapy ; Erythema ; Forearm ; Healthy Volunteers ; Hepatitis ; Humans ; Hypersensitivity ; Immunologic Tests ; Leprosy* ; Leprosy, Tuberculoid ; Lymphocytes* ; Needles ; Syringes ; Tissue Donors ; Volunteers