Hiccups may be considered a form of myoclonus of diaphragm. Valproic acid has been considered the drug of choice in treatment of intractable hiccups; however, its various adverse events limit its use in the clinical basis, especially in elderly or complicated patients. Levetiracetam was known as a safe antiepileptic drug. However, the anti-hiccup property of the levetiracetam has been rarely reported. We report a 69-year old male patient who developed sudden persistent hiccups and was successfully treated with levetiracetam. Levetiracetam should be considered as alternative treatment option in selected patients with intractable hiccups.
Aged ; Diaphragm ; Hiccup ; Humans ; Male ; Myoclonus ; Piracetam ; Valproic Acid

Background and Objectives: Natural and synthetic speech signals effectively stimulate cortical auditory evoked potential (CAEP). This study aimed to select the speech materials for CAEP and identify CAEP waveforms according to gender of speaker (GS) and gender of listener (GL). Subjects and Methods: Two experiments including a comparison of natural and synthetic stimuli and CAEP measurement were performed of 21 young announcers and 40 young adults. Plosive /g/ and /b/ and aspirated plosive /k/ and /p/ were combined to /a/. Six bisyllables–/ga/-/ka/, /ga/-/ba/, /ga/-/pa/, /ka/-/ba/, /ka/-/pa/, and /ba/-/pa/–were formulated as tentative forwarding and backwarding orders. In the natural and synthetic stimulation mode (SM) according to GS, /ka/ and /pa/ were selected through the first experiment used for CAEP measurement. Results: The correction rate differences were largest (74%) at /ka/-/ pa/ and /pa/-/ka/; thus, they were selected as stimulation materals for CAEP measurement. The SM showed shorter latency with P2 and N1-P2 with natural stimulation and N2 with synthetic stimulation. The P2 amplitude was larger with natural stimulation. The SD showed significantly larger amplitude for P2 and N1-P2 with /pa/. The GS showed shorter latency for P2, N2, and N1-P2 and larger amplitude for N2 with female speakers. The GL showed shorter latency for N2 and N1-P2 and larger amplitude for N2 with female listeners. Conclusions Although several variables showed significance for N2, P2, and N1-P2, P1 and N1 did not show any significance for any variables. N2 and P2 of CAEP seemed affected by endogenous factors.

Background and Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the occupational performance of Korean workers with and without hearing loss and analyze the hearing-related difficulties in the working environment. Subjects and Methods: The Amsterdam checklist for hearing and work was used for the analyses and the occupational environments of the Korean workers were investigated. Out of 129 total participants, 86 workers experienced severe to profound hearing loss and 43 had the normal hearing ability. The hearing-impaired workers were recruited from two leading vocational centers and normal-hearing workers were their colleagues. Results: The hearing-impaired workers were found to take fewer sick leaves and exhibited higher rates of permanent job statuses compared to the normal-hearing workers. Workers with hearing loss rarely detected background sound; however, they could perceive reverberation more frequently. They felt more satisfied with their careers than the normal hearing workers as they received social support and needed to put their effort into hearing for most hearing activities. Furthermore, the effort in hearing increased with the increase in job demand, job control, social support, and career satisfaction. The working hours per week increased with the increase in age, education level, job demand, job control, and social support. Different trends were observed in 9 out of 12 variables while comparing the data from the present study with that obtained from the hearing-impaired workers of the Netherlands, indicating a large difference between countries. Conclusions Although the hearing-impaired Korean workers operate diligently with good job positions, it is necessary to enhance their acoustic environment and provide them social support. Considering the cultural background of the hearing-impaired workers, the development of suitable vocational rehabilitation programs and specific questionnaires is strongly recommended worldwide.

Background and Objectives: Recently, the improvement of music perception abilities for emotional stability and high quality of life has become important for the hearing loss group. This study aimed to examine and compare the music perception abilities of the normal hearing (NH) and hearing amplification system (HAS) groups to find the needs and methods of music rehabilitation. Subjects and Methods: The data were collected from 15 NH adults (33.1±11.4 years) and 15 HAS adults (38.7±13.4 years), of whom eight wore cochlear implant [CI] systems and seven wore CI and hearing aid systems depending on pitch, melody, rhythm, timbre, emotional reaction, and harmony perception tests. A mismatch negativity test was also conducted, and attitudes toward and satisfaction with listening to music were measured. Results: The correction percentages for the NH and HAS groups were 94.0%±6.1% and 75.3%±23.2% in the pitch test; 94.0%±7.1% and 30.3%±25.9% in the melody test; 99.3%±1.8% and 94.0%± 7.6% in the rhythm test; 78.9%±41.8% and 64.4%±48.9% in the timbre test; 96.7%±10.4% and 81.7%±16.3% in the emotional reaction test; and 85.7%±14.1% and 58.4%±13.9% in the harmony test, respectively, showing statistical significance (p<0.05). For the mismatch negativity test, the area of the waveform was smaller in the HAS groups than in the NH groups, with 70 dB of stimulation showing no statistical significance. The response rates for satisfaction with listening to music were 80% and 93.3% for the NH and HAS groups, showing no statistical significance. Conclusions Although the HAS group showed lower music perception ability than the NH group overall, they showed a strong desire for music listening. Also, the HAS group revealed a higher degree of satisfaction even when listening to unfamiliar music played with unusual instruments. It is suggested that systematic and constant musical rehabilitation based on musical elements and different listening experiences will improve music perception qualities and abilities for HAS users.

Cholesterol embolization syndrome (CES) usually occurs after endovascular procedures, it may also occurs after using anticoagulants and thrombolytics. We report a case of 66-year-old man with sudden elevation of creatinine after using warfarin due to cortical infarction. Histologic examinations revealed a cholesterol cleft on the arcuate artery. We concluded it as warfarin induced atheroembolic renal disease. Careful observation of kidneys is necessary in the case of renal abnormalities after using anticoagulation, considering the possibility of cholesterol embolism due to anticoagulant therapy.
Aged ; Anticoagulants ; Arteries ; Cholesterol ; Creatinine ; Embolism ; Embolism, Cholesterol ; Endovascular Procedures ; Humans ; Infarction ; Kidney ; Warfarin

This paper describes a community effort to improve earlier versions of the full-text corpus of Genomics & Informatics by semi-automatically detecting and correcting PDF-to-text conversion errors and optical character recognition errors during the first hackathon of Genomics & Informatics Annotation Hackathon (GIAH) event. Extracting text from multi-column biomedical documents such as Genomics & Informatics is known to be notoriously difficult. The hackathon was piloted as part of a coding competition of the ELTEC College of Engineering at Ewha Womans University in order to enable researchers and students to create or annotate their own versions of the Genomics & Informatics corpus, to gain and create knowledge about corpus linguistics, and simultaneously to acquire tangible and transferable skills. The proposed projects during the hackathon harness an internal database containing different versions of the corpus and annotations.

This paper describes a community effort to improve earlier versions of the full-text corpus of Genomics & Informatics by semi-automatically detecting and correcting PDF-to-text conversion errors and optical character recognition errors during the first hackathon of Genomics & Informatics Annotation Hackathon (GIAH) event. Extracting text from multi-column biomedical documents such as Genomics & Informatics is known to be notoriously difficult. The hackathon was piloted as part of a coding competition of the ELTEC College of Engineering at Ewha Womans University in order to enable researchers and students to create or annotate their own versions of the Genomics & Informatics corpus, to gain and create knowledge about corpus linguistics, and simultaneously to acquire tangible and transferable skills. The proposed projects during the hackathon harness an internal database containing different versions of the corpus and annotations.