Objective: The Scales for Outcomes in Parkinson’s Disease–Cognition (SCOPA-Cog) was developed to assess cognition in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). In this study, we aimed to evaluate the validity and reliability of the Korean version of the SCOPACog (K-SCOPA-Cog). Methods: We enrolled 129 PD patients with movement disorders from 31 clinics in South Korea. The original version of the SCOPA-Cog was translated into Korean using the translation-retranslation method. The test–retest method with an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient were used to assess reliability. Spearman’s rank correlation analysis with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment-Korean version (MOCA-K) and the Korean Mini-Mental State Examination (K-MMSE) were used to assess concurrent validity. Results: The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.797, and the ICC was 0.887. Spearman’s rank correlation analysis revealed a significant correlation with the K-MMSE and MOCA-K scores (r = 0.546 and r = 0.683, respectively). Conclusion Our results demonstrate that the K-SCOPA-Cog has good reliability and validity.

Background: In modern society, rapid changes in the medical environment have required medical staff to access various information and be competent in active and effective problem-solving through collegial interactions. In line with these changes, universities are aiming to connect education. This study aimed to provide basic data of connected-convergence education by survey the awareness and needs of college students in health-related fields. Methods: This study included 122 college students from the health field. A survey regarding “the awareness and need of connected-convergence education” was conducted and general characteristics of the participants were collected from June to July 2022. Results: The awareness of connected-convergence education was low at 19.7%, but the intention to participate was high at 74.6%. Subject requirements were 18.0% for medical psychology, 13.5% for communication and counseling, 13.5% for medical artificial intelligence technology convergence, and 10.4% for sports health management. In the group showing high satisfaction with the major curriculum, the demand for connected education was also high. For efficient operation, it was investigated that it was necessary to secure specialized training courses, recognition of liberal arts credits, the right to register for courses equal to those of major students, and secure dedicated classrooms. Conclusion Although the awareness and experience of connected-convergence education among the participants were low, the intention to participate was high. As such a plan to revitalize the university curriculum was required. It is timely to discuss the nurturing of convergence-type talents and multidisciplinary thinking skills. It is meaningful to provide basic data necessary for connected-convergence education in health-related fields at university. Universities should strive to enhance job competency in the health field by providing connected-convergence education based on student demands.

Purpose: This study evaluated the diagnostic performance of contrast-enhanced voiding urosonography (ce-VUS) using a second-generation ultrasound contrast agent for the diagnosis of vesicoureteral reflux (VUR) and intrarenal reflux (IRR), and compared it with that of standard fluoroscopic voiding cystourethrography (VCUG). Methods: Thirty-two consecutive children from April to October 2019 were included in this study. ce-VUS and VCUG were performed simultaneously by two operators with intravesical infusion of a mixture of ultrasound contrast medium, iodinated contrast medium and water. Two pediatric radiologists independently reviewed the ce-VUS and VCUG images and reported the presence and degree of VUR (grades I-V), and the presence and type of IRR. Results: Twenty-seven of 63 urinary systems showed VUR. Interobserver agreement for VUR grading was very good for both examinations (κ=0.87; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.82 to 0.92 for ce-VUS and κ=0.92; 95% CI, 0.87 to 0.96 for VCUG). The detection rate of VUR showed no significant difference between the two examinations (P=0.370). Four cases of VUR were missed on ce-VUS, while one case of VUR was missed on VCUG. All four false-negative cases on ce-VUS were grade 1 VUR. The two examinations showed very good agreement regarding VUR grading (κ =0.89; 95% CI, 0.81 to 0.96). IRR was more frequently detected with ce-VUS than with VCUG (10 cases with ce-VUS vs. 3 cases with VCUG, P=0.016). Conclusion ce-VUS showed very good agreement with VCUG for detecting grade 2 VUR and above, while grade 1 VUR was sometimes missed with ce-VUS. IRR was more frequently detected with ce-VUS than with VCUG.

Background: and PurposeImpulse-control disorder is an important nonmotor symptom of Parkinson's disease (PD) that can lead to financial and social problems, and be related to a poor quality of life. A nationwide multicenter prospective study was performed with the aim of validating the Korean Version of the Questionnaire for Impulsive-Compulsive Disorders in Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (K-QUIP-RS). Methods: The K-QUIP-RS was constructed using forward and backward translation, and pretesting of the prefinal version. PD patients on stable medical condition were recruited from 27 movement-disorder clinics. Participants were assessed using the K-QUIP-RS and evaluated for parkinsonian motor and nonmotor statuses and for PD-related quality of life using a predefined evaluation battery. The test–retest reliability of the K-QUIP-RS was assessed over an interval of 10–14 days, and correlations between the KQUIP-RS and other clinical scales were analyzed. Results: This study enrolled 136 patients. The internal consistency of the K-QUIP-RS was indicated by a Cronbach's α coefficient of 0.846, as was the test–retest reliability by a Guttman split-half coefficient of 0.808. The total K-QUIP-RS score was positively correlated with the scores for depression and motivation items on the Unified PD Rating Scale (UPDRS), Montgomery-Asberg Depression Scale, and Rapid-Eye-Movement Sleep-Behavior-Disorders Questionnaire. The total K-QUIP-RS score was also correlated with the scores on part II of the UPDRS and the PD Quality of Life-39 questionnaire, and the dopaminergic medication dose. Conclusions The K-QUIP-RS appears to be a reliable assessment tool for impulse-control and related behavioral disturbances in the Korean PD population.

BACKGROUND: AND PURPOSE: This study aimed to determine the clinimetric properties of the Korean version of Parkinson's Disease Sleep Scale-2 (K-PDSS-2) and whether distinct subtypes of sleep disturbance can be empirically identified in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) using the cross-culturally validated K-PDSS-2. METHODS: The internal consistency, test–retest reliability, scale precision, and convergent validity of K-PDSS-2 were assessed in a nationwide, multicenter study of 122 patients with PD. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to derive subgroups of patients who experienced similar patterns of sleep-related problems and nocturnal disabilities. RESULTS: The total K-PDSS-2 score was 11.67±9.87 (mean±standard deviation) at baseline and 12.61±11.17 at the retest. Cronbach's α coefficients of the total K-PDSS-2 scores at baseline and follow-up were 0.851 and 0.880, respectively. The intraclass correlation coefficients over the 2-week study period ranged from 0.672 to 0.848. The total K-PDSS-2 score was strongly correlated with health-related quality of life measures and other corresponding nonmotor scales. LCA revealed three distinct subtypes of sleep disturbance in the study patients: “less-troubled sleepers,”“PD-related nocturnal difficulties,” and “disturbed sleepers.” CONCLUSIONS K-PDSS-2 showed good clinimetric attributes in accordance with previous studies that employed the original version of the PDSS-2, therefore confirming the cross-cultural usefulness of the scale. This study has further documented the first application of an LCA approach for identifying subtypes of sleep disturbance in patients with PD.

Rice is the most commonly consumed grain in the world. Black rice has been suggested to contain various bioactive compounds including anthocyanin antioxidants. There is currently little information about the nutritional benefits of black rice on brain pathology. Here, we investigated the effects of black rice (Oryza sativa L., Poaceae) extract (BRE) on the hippocampal neuronal damage induced by ischemic insult. BRE (300 mg/kg) was orally administered to adult male C57BL/6 mice once a day for 21 days. Bilateral common carotid artery occlusion (BCCAO) was performed for 23 min on the 8th day of BRE or vehicle administration. Histological analyses conducted on the 22nd day of BRE or vehicle administration revealed that administering BRE profoundly attenuated neuronal cell death, inhibited reactive astrogliosis, and prevented loss of glutathione peroxidase expression in the hippocampus when compared to vehicle treatment. In addition, BRE considerably ameliorated BCCAO-induced memory impairment on the Morris water maze test from the 15th day to the 22nd day of BRE or vehicle administration. These results indicate that chronic administration of BRE is potentially beneficial in cerebral ischemia.
Adult ; Animals ; Anthocyanins ; Antioxidants ; Brain ; Brain Ischemia* ; Carotid Artery, Common ; Cell Death* ; Glutathione Peroxidase ; Hippocampus ; Humans ; Male ; Memory ; Mice* ; Neurons* ; Neuroprotection ; Oryza ; Pathology ; Water

BACKGROUND: Sleep problems commonly occur in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), and are associated with a lower quality of life. The aim of the current study was to translate the English version of the Scales for Outcomes in Parkinson's Disease-Sleep (SCOPA-S) into the Korean version of SCOPA-S (K-SCOPA-S), and to evaluate its reliability and validity for use by Korean-speaking patients with PD. METHODS: In total, 136 patients with PD from 27 movement disorder centres of university-affiliated hospitals in Korea were enrolled in this study. They were assessed using SCOPA, Hoehn and Yahr Scale (HYS), Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), Parkinson's Disease Sleep Scale 2nd version (PDSS-2), Non-motor Symptoms Scale (NMSS), Montgomery Asberg Depression Scale (MADS), 39-item Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire (PDQ39), Neurogenic Orthostatic Hypotension Questionnaire (NOHQ), and Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behaviour Disorder Questionnaire (RBDQ). The test-retest reliability was assessed over a time interval of 10–14 days. RESULTS: The internal consistency (Cronbach's α-coefficients) of K-SCOPA-S was 0.88 for nighttime sleep (NS) and 0.75 for daytime sleepiness (DS). Test-retest reliability was 0.88 and 0.85 for the NS and DS, respectively. There was a moderate correlation between the NS sub-score and PDSS-2 total score. The NS and DS sub-scores of K-SCOPA-S were correlated with motor scale such as HYS, and non-motor scales such as UPDRS I, UPDRS II, MADS, NMSS, PDQ39, and NOHQ while the DS sub-score was with RBDQ. CONCLUSION: The K-SCOPA-S exhibited good reliability and validity for the assessment of sleep problems in the Korean patients with PD.
Depression ; Humans ; Hypotension, Orthostatic ; Korea ; Movement Disorders ; Parkinson Disease ; Quality of Life ; Reproducibility of Results ; Sleep, REM ; Weights and Measures

PURPOSE: Adverse drug events (ADEs) are associated with high health and financial costs and have increased as more elderly patients treated with multiple medications emerge in an aging society. It has thus become challenging for physicians to identify drugs causing adverse events. This study proposes a novel approach that can improve clinical decision making with recommendations on ADE causative drugs based on patient information, drug information, and previous ADE cases. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We introduce a personalized and learning approach for detecting drugs with a specific adverse event, where recommendations tailored to each patient are generated using data mining techniques. Recommendations could be improved by learning the associations of patients and ADEs as more ADE cases are accumulated through iterations. After consulting the system-generated recommendations, a physician can alter prescriptions accordingly and report feedback, enabling the system to evolve with actual causal relationships. RESULTS: A prototype system is developed using ADE cases reported over 1.5 years and recommendations obtained from decision tree analysis are validated by physicians. Two representative cases demonstrate that the personalized recommendations could contribute to more prompt and accurate responses to ADEs. CONCLUSION: The current system where the information of individual drugs exists but is not organized in such a way that facilitates the extraction of relevant information together can be complemented with the proposed approach to enhance the treatment of patients with ADEs. Our illustrative results show the promise of the proposed system and further studies are expected to validate its performance with quantitative measures.
Aged ; Aging ; Clinical Decision-Making ; Complement System Proteins ; Data Mining ; Decision Trees ; Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions ; Humans ; Learning* ; Prescriptions

OBJECTIVE: Autonomic symptoms are commonly observed in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and often limit the activities of daily living. The Scale for Outcomes in Parkinson's disease-Autonomic (SCOPA-AUT) was developed to evaluate and quantify autonomic symptoms in PD. The goal of this study was to translate the original SCOPA-AUT, which was written in English, into Korean and to evaluate its reliability and validity for Korean PD patients. METHODS: For the translation, the following processes were performed: forward translation, backward translation, expert review, pretest of the pre-final version and development of the final Korean version of SCOPA-AUT (K-SCOPA-AUT). In total, 127 patients with PD from 31 movement disorder clinics of university-affiliated hospitals in Korea were enrolled in this study. All patients were assessed using the K-SCOPA-AUT and other motor, non-motor, and quality of life scores. Test-retest reliability for the K-SCOPA-AUT was assessed over a time interval of 10−14 days. RESULTS: The internal consistency and reliability of the K-SCOPA-AUT was 0.727 as measured by the mean Cronbach's α-coefficient. The test-retest correlation reliability was 0.859 by the Guttman split-half coefficient. The total K-SCOPA-AUT score showed a positive correlation with other non-motor symptoms [the Korean version of non-motor symptom scale (K-NMSS)], activities of daily living (Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale part II) and quality of life [the Korean version of Parkinson's Disease Quality of Life 39 (K-PDQ39)]. CONCLUSION: The K-SCOPA-AUT had good reliability and validity for the assessment of autonomic dysfunction in Korean PD patients. Autonomic symptom severities were associated with many other motor and non-motor impairments and influenced quality of life.
Activities of Daily Living ; Humans ; Korea ; Movement Disorders ; Parkinson Disease ; Quality of Life ; Reproducibility of Results

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Despite improvements in surgical techniques and postoperative patient care, bile leakage can occur after hepatobiliary surgery and may lead to serious complications. The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the efficacy of endoscopic treatment of bile leakage after hepatobiliary surgery. METHODS: The medical records of 20 patients who underwent endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography because of bile leakage after hepatobiliary surgery from August 2009 to September 2014 were reviewed retrospectively. Endoscopic treatment included insertion of an endoscopic retrograde biliary drainage stent after endoscopic sphincterotomy. RESULTS: Most cases of bile leakage presented as percutaneous bile drainage through a Jackson-Pratt bag (75%), followed by abdominal pain (20%). The sites of bile leaks were the cystic duct stump in 10 patients, intrahepatic ducts in five, liver beds in three, common hepatic duct in one, and common bile duct in one. Of the three cases of bile leakage combined with bile duct stricture, one patient had severe bile duct obstruction, and the others had mild strictures. Five cases of bile leakage also exhibited common bile duct stones. Concerning endoscopic modalities, endoscopic therapy for bile leakage was successful in 19 patients (95%). One patient experienced endoscopic failure because of an operation-induced bile duct deformity. One patient developed guidewire-induced microperforation during cannulation, which recovered with conservative treatment. One patient developed recurrent bile leakage, which required additional biliary stenting with sphincterotomy. CONCLUSIONS: The endoscopic approach should be considered a first-line modality for the diagnosis and treatment of bile leakage after hepatobiliary surgery.
Abdominal Pain ; Bile Ducts ; Bile* ; Catheterization ; Cholangiopancreatography, Endoscopic Retrograde ; Cholestasis ; Common Bile Duct ; Congenital Abnormalities ; Constriction, Pathologic ; Cystic Duct ; Diagnosis ; Drainage ; Hepatic Duct, Common ; Humans ; Liver ; Medical Records ; Patient Care ; Retrospective Studies ; Sphincterotomy, Endoscopic ; Stents