The Purpose of this study was to explore and describe the lived experience of the poor solitary elder by eliciting verbal descriptions of their experiences. The phenomenological approach in qualitative studies is used to serve this purpose. Colaizzi's method is used for phenomenological analysis of the data in this study. which were collected from 10 poor solitary elders. They were asked open ended and descriptive questions in order to get them to talk about their experiences in their own terms. Interviews were tape recorded and transcribed verbatim. From the protocols, 182 significant statements about lived experience were organized and then grouped into 4 theme clusters. The major themes that emerged from the analysis were 'Awareness of Power Declining'. 'Emotional Disturbances of The Self'. 'Love and Hatred to Family', 'Trying to Accept Life'. The result of this study showed that the poor solitary elder needed nursing care based on a deep understanding of their lived experiences in their everyday life. From this study of essential themes for understanding the poor solitary elder, Nurses and health workers must develop supportive programs for helping the poor solitary elder.
Nursing Care

The purpose of this study was to provide basic informations for developing family-focused nursing interventions for families with chronic illness. the results of this study were as follows. In family caregiver systems, spouses of chronically ill patients showed higher anxiety scores9t=4.71, P=.000) and higher scores of the perceived importance of family functioning(t=3.67, P=.000) than those of children of chronically ill patients. But spouses showed lower scores of the satisfaction of family functioning (t=2.92, P=.005) than those of children of chronically ill patients. For spouses of chronically ill patients, the correlation between the satisfaction of family functioning and anxiety turned out to be significant9r=-.518, P=.001). However for children the correlation between them was not statistically significant. Findings of this study suggest that families with chronic illness need family-focused nursing interventions to relieve their anxiety and to improve family functioning. In conclusion, the investigation about family functioning and anxiety provides useful information for family-focused nursing care, especially for spouses of chronically ill patients. This information will contribute to developing the support systems for family caregivers and the education programs that helps chronically ill patients.
Anxiety* ; Caregivers* ; Child ; Chronic Disease* ; Education ; Humans ; Nursing ; Nursing Care ; Spouses

Streptococcus pyogenes has been regarded very importantly because of its severe sequelae, namely rheumatic fever and acute glomerulonephropathy. Rapid tests to identify this organism have been studied widely in developed countries in 1980s. We proceeded the rapid test (A Strept ADTM, Denka Seiken Co, Japan) of S. pyogenes on 141 children who were Known to be carriers of this organism to evaluate whether the rapid test could be used at the pediatric office base. Throat cultures were taken simultaneously to evaluate the efficacy of this rapid test. The test shoewed very low sensitivity of 17% (13/14) and high specificity of 99% (65/66). The positive predictive value was.93% (13/14) and negative predictive value 51% (65/127) respectively. Most of the positive results of rapid test have been agreed with the actual number of colonies on the throat culture. The reasons for the low sensitivity and negative predictive value of the rapid test should be discovered and supplemented if it could be applicable to the pediatric office and accurate evaluation of the rapid test in patients with acute pharyngitis is needed.
Child ; Developed Countries ; Humans ; Pharyngitis ; Pharynx ; Rheumatic Fever ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Streptococcus pyogenes* ; Streptococcus*

Partial capital resection (cheilectomy, partial capitectomy, excision of a lip) has gained an accepted place in treating the Legg-Calve-Perthes disease with severely malformed femoral head in which containment surgery has rarely been successful. The clinical experiences in six children aged over 10 years who complained marked limitation of hip motion with severe collapse and subluxation of femoral head are presented. Postoperative results including clinical and radiological findings are quite promising.
Child ; Containment of Biohazards ; Head ; Hip ; Humans ; Legg-Calve-Perthes Disease

No abstract available.
Animals ; Olfactory Bulb* ; Olfactory Mucosa* ; Rats* ; Synapses*

Red blood cells that agglutinate with most normal adult sera but never with own sera are termed polyagglutinable and can be separated by patterns of lectin reactivity into various types. Among these polyagglutination, activation of the T cryptantigen occurs when carbohydrate structures on glycophorins A and B lose sialic acid and express the disaccharide Gal beta-l-3 GalNac which reacts with the peanut agglutinin, a lectin from Arachis hypogaea. T activation is a temporary condition due to exposure of the membrane antigen to the action of microbial neuraminidase. In T activated red cells, the following hazards, which are theoretically possible, are spontaneous polyagglutination of red cells in vitro, in vivo and severe blood transfusion reactions. We experienced a case of T activation in 6 month old girl with bacterial meningitis caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae. The reactivity to lectins indicated the patient's red cells were T activated. We report a case of T activation in an infant with the review of literature.
Adult ; Arachis ; Blood Transfusion ; Erythrocytes ; Female ; Glycophorin ; Humans ; Infant ; Lectins ; Membranes ; Meningitis, Bacterial ; N-Acetylneuraminic Acid ; Neuraminidase ; Peanut Agglutinin ; Streptococcus pneumoniae

PURPOSE: To evaluate physical characteristics, lifestyle related to bone-health, and bone mineral density (BMD) in mothers and their daughters and to determine the predictors of BMD. METHOD: BMDs at the forearm, lumbar spine, and femur were measured in 101 healthy, mother-daughter pairs by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry. Mother-daughter differences between general characteristics, means for BMDs were assessed by chi2-test, t-tests. Multiple regression analyses were used to identify predictors of BMD in each group. RESULTS: Mothers had significantly higher BMD than their daughters at forearm, lumbar spine, and femur. The predictors of mothers' BMDs were body weight, body mass index (BMI) and percentage body fat, explaining 5.1~31.6% of the variation in BMDs. BMI, percentage body fat and their mother's BMD of the corresponding site bone were predictors in daughters, explaining 17.5~31.6% of the variations in BMDs. CONCLUSION: These results indicate the importance of weight on bone that the BMDs seems to be related to fat free mass both in young-adult daughters and in middle aged mothers. These also suggest the importance of intervention for the development of BMD in daughter of mother with low BMD.
Absorptiometry, Photon ; Adipose Tissue ; Body Mass Index ; Body Weight ; Bone Density* ; Femur ; Forearm ; Humans ; Life Style ; Middle Aged ; Mothers* ; Nuclear Family* ; Osteoporosis ; Spine

No abstract available.
Cholesteatoma* ; Otitis Media* ; Otitis* ; Temporal Bone*

BACKGROUND: Whether the changes of risk factors (hypertension, diabetes mellitus, smoking, alcohol) can precipitate stroke remains unknown, and antecedent infection and psychologic stress are described insufficiently as predisposing risk factors for cerebral infarction. Therefore, we attempted to examine the roles of recent infection, psychologic stress, and the changes of risk factors as potential precipitants in each stroke subtypes. We also tested the temporal relationship between preceding exposure to coldness and stroke onset. METHODS: In this case-control study, 113 consecutive patients with acute cerebrovascular disease (38 small vessel disease, 43 large vessel disease, 11 cardiogenic infarction, 4 infarction of undetermined cause, and 17 intracerebral hemorrhage) and 23 control subjects were evaluated. Changes of the risk factors (and their management) were interviewed. A sign/symptom based questionnaire was used to characterize the prevalence of recent prior infection and exposure to coldness. Psychologic stress was measured with the use of Social Readjustment Rating Scale. RESULTS: The negative change of alcohol drinking was significantly higher in the stroke group. However, there was no significant difference between stroke and control groups in the changes of the other risk factors. The prevalence of previous (within 1 month) infection was significantly higher in the stroke group compared with control subjects (p=0.03). However, there were no significant differences among the stroke subtypes in the prevalence of infection(p=0.08). Upper respiratory tract infections constituted the most common type of infection. The exposure to coldness was significantly higher in the stroke group compared with control subjects (p=0.002). The level of stress within the prior 1 month/1 year was significantly higher in the stroke group than control group (p=0.01). CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that preceding infection, exposure to coldness, psychologic stress, and the negative change of alcohol drinking may be com.
Alcohol Drinking ; Case-Control Studies ; Cerebral Infarction ; Diabetes Mellitus ; Humans ; Infarction ; Prevalence ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Respiratory Tract Infections ; Risk Factors* ; Smoke ; Smoking ; Stress, Psychological* ; Stroke*

With development of immunochemical methods for anlysis of serum proteins, quantitative determination of serum immunoglobulin levels and purification of them have been made possible in recent years. There are numerous reports about immunoglobulin levels in various diseases. A search of the literature reveals very few reports of quantitative immunoglobulin determinations in allergic dermatoses. The present study was conducted to find quantitative changes of serum immunoglobulins in a few allergic dermatoses. To quantify the IgG, IgA and IgM, one hundred and two sera were analysed form 30 normal control group, 30 contact dermatitis patients, 12 stopic dermatitis patients and 30 urticaria patients by modified Oudin's capillary tube method. The results are as follows. 1.In contact dermatitis the IgG was significantly increased to compare with control group(p<0.01) 2.In atopic dermatitis the IgA was significantly increased to compare with control group(p<0.01) 3.In urticaria the IgG was increased (p<0.05) 4.The IgM has no differences between allergic dermatoses and control group.
Blood Proteins ; Capillaries ; Dermatitis ; Dermatitis, Atopic ; Dermatitis, Contact ; Humans ; Immunoglobulin A ; Immunoglobulin G ; Immunoglobulin M ; Immunoglobulins ; Skin Diseases* ; Urticaria