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Background@#In Korea, the length of stay and medical expenses incurred by medical aid patients are increasing at a rate faster than the national health insurance. Therefore, there is a need to create a management strategy for each type of hospitalization to manage the length of stay of medical aid patients. @*Methods@#The study used data from the 2019 National Health Insurance Claims. We analyzed the factors that affect the length of stay for 186,576 medical aid patients who were hospitalized for more than 31 days, with a focus on the type of hospitalization in long-term care hospitals. @*Results@#The study found a significant correlation between gender, age, medical aid type, chronic disease ratio, long-term care hospital patient classification, and hospitalization type variables as factors that affect the length of hospital stay. The analysis of the differences in the length of stay for each type of hospitalization showed that the average length of stay is 291.4 days for type 1, 192.9 days for type 2, and 157.0 days for type 3, and that the difference is significant (p<0.0001). When type 3 was 0, type 1 significantly increased by 99.4 days, and type 2 by 36.6 days (p<0.0001). @*Conclusion@#A model that can comprehensively view factors, such as provider factors and institutional factors, needs to be designed.In addition, to reduce long stays for medical aid patients, a mechanism to establish an early discharge plan should be prepared and concerns about underutilization should be simultaneously addressed.
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PURPOSE: This examined the effect of Kinesio taping pre-intervention on the pain, tenderness, proprioceptive sensation, and muscle strength associated with delayed onset muscle soreness. METHODS: Thirty subjects were divided into a Kinesio taping application group of 15 subjects and a control non-taped group of 15 subjects, and the changes in individual variables were analyzed before taping and at 24, 48, and 72 hours after taping using two-way repeated ANOVA. Post-hoc t-tests were conducted in the cases with intergroup interactions, and the significance level α was set to α=0.01. RESULTS: The changes in pain during rest were significantly different only for the times, while the changes in pain during exercise were significantly different for the times, interactions between the times and groups, and intergroup changes (p<0.05). The changes in tenderness were significantly different for the times and for interactions between the times and groups (p<0.05). The changes in proprioceptive sensation were significantly different for the times, interactions between times and groups, and intergroup changes (p<0.05). The changes in muscle strength were significantly different only for the times (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: The application of Kinesio taping had positive effects on the pain, tenderness, and proprioceptive sensation of delayed onset muscle soreness. These results suggest that Kinesio taping can be a useful therapeutic factor in future studies and in clinical settings.
Subject(s)
Muscle Strength , Myalgia , Proprioception , SensationABSTRACT
PURPOSE: This study was conducted to examine the effects of different sizes of blood flow restriction areas on the thickness of the external oblique and biceps brachii. METHODS: The study subjects were 52 adults who were divided into four groups that performed plank exercises over a six-week period after blood flow restriction. Changes in the thickness of the external oblique and biceps brachii were measured using ultrasonography before the experiment, then three and six weeks after the experiment. The changes in each variable over time were evaluated by repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). RESULTS: The external oblique and biceps brachii showed significant differences in muscle thickness with regard to time and the interaction between time and each group (p0.05). CONCLUSION: A larger blood flow restriction area resulted in a statistically significant increase in muscle thickness. The results of this study may be used as the basis for future studies and for rehabilitation in clinical practice.
Subject(s)
Adult , Humans , Exercise , Rehabilitation , UltrasonographyABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Blood glucose testing (BGT) at the forearm minimizes the pain experienced during sampling of capillary blood. We compared the BGT results for forearm sampling with those for standard finger skin puncture and venous serum to evaluate the clinical validity of forearm BGT. METHODS: BGT was performed on the finger (G(F)) and forearm (G(A)) with a portable glucometer in 555 subjects, including 61 diabetic patients, under fasting conditions. BGT with venous serum (G(V)) was followed within an hour in 514 subjects. Simple linear regression, intraclass correlation, and Passing-Bablok regression analyses were performed using the G(A)-G(F) and G(A)-G(V) data. RESULTS: G(A) showed an excellent linear relationship with both G(F) and G(V) with a Pearson correlation coefficient (r) of 0.97 (P<0.0001) in the patient group, which was similar to the findings in the normal group except for the lower r values. The mean bias between G(A) and G(F) and between G(A) and G(V) were within +/- 10 mg/dL in both groups. The intraclass correlation coefficients were slightly smaller than the corresponding r values, but they showed the same tendency in both groups. In the Passing-Bablok analyses, the 95% confidence intervals of the slope and intercept parameters were <+/-20% of unity and <+/-20 mg/dL, respectively, which were within the acceptable ranges. All 3 statistical analyses supported the satisfactory agreement of G(A) with G(F) or G(V). CONCLUSIONS: BGT at the forearm was highly consistent with the standard BGT, thereby confirming its applicability in clinical practice for self-testing under steady fasting conditions.
Subject(s)
Adult , Aged , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Blood Glucose/analysis , Blood Specimen Collection , Fingers/blood supply , Forearm/blood supply , Regression AnalysisABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to self-management asthma including symptom, medication, and to prevent the exacerbation of the condition using the Personal Asthma Management System(PAMS) which was developed based on Personal digital Assistant(PDA). METHODS: A development tool of the PAMS was EVC(Microsoft Embadded Visual C++). The system contents referred to workshop report of the Global Initiative for Asthma, on-line lecture of the Korean Society of allergology and Korea Asthma allergy Foundation, asthma-related web-sites. RESULTS: The PAMS was implemented with four main menus: personal information, symptom, medication management, and self care. The patients input their daily condition, and this data will be used in the successful prevention and management of asthma exacerbation. This real-time nature of PAMS is its primary advantage over other retrospective computing system for reducing the effects of forgetting, so this information will be useful in classifying of asthma severity. CONCLUSION: The PAMS can be contributed to aid self-management of asthma and effective treatment by attending physician.
Subject(s)
Humans , Asthma , Education , Hypersensitivity , Korea , Retrospective Studies , Self CareABSTRACT
Imaging findings of secondary hepatic lymphoma have been reported as variable, ranging from single or multiple small nodules to diffuse infiltrative tumor patterns. We hear present a rare case report concerning aggressive B cells, secondary Burkitt's lymphoma in non-AIDS demonstrating a surprising periportal lymphoma infiltration, without upper abdominal lymphadenopathy or splenomegaly on the sonography and CT scans. Clinically, the case was characterized by atypical and highly aggressive course, with the patient presenting an abruptly developed obstructive jaundice with rapidly deteriorating hepatic function that could be indicative of cholestatic hepatitis, which differs in its clinical manifestations from hepatic lymphoma without functional deterioration in respect of its non-tissue destructive growth pattern. We suggest that hepatic lymphoma can sometimes be consistent with periportal infiltrating homogeneous mass, with no lymphadenopathy or splenomegaly on the imaging examination, with a predictable aggressive clinical course of the disease and poor prognosis.
Subject(s)
Female , Humans , Middle Aged , Abdomen , Burkitt Lymphoma/pathology , Fatal Outcome , Liver Neoplasms/pathology , Prognosis , Tomography, X-Ray ComputedABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To develop a PDA based hand-held system, which assists diabetic patients to self manage his/her blood glucose level, diet, and other related variables in a systematic way. METHODS: Personal diabetes management system(PDMS) was developed in the integrated environment of Visual Studio.net 2003. The system was configured based on the documentation resulted from extensive review on the current S/W products and internet homepages for the diabetes. RESULTS: PDMS was implemented with four main menus to manage personal information, diet, exercise, and blood glucose. It was designed to provide the quantitative health indices such as body mass index and diabetes index based on the personal physical information, pedigree, and living habits. It addition, it is capable of predicting changes of the body weight, which may remind patients of the importance of the disease management. CONCLUSION: A PDA based hand-held self management system was developed for the diabetes. The present system can be used as a mobile device within the tele-healthcare system integrated with medical center thru the internet.
Subject(s)
Humans , Blood Glucose , Body Mass Index , Body Weight , Diet , Disease Management , Internet , Pedigree , Self CareABSTRACT
PURPOSE: To identify characteristics of chronic fatigue, difference between the duration of fatigue and characteristics of chronic fatigue, and association between chronic fatigue and related factors in adults. METHOD: The subjects for this study were 180 adults who had experienced fatigue for over one month. The measurement tools were the Revised Fatigue Scale by Chalder et al. (1993), the Visual Analogue Scale-energy developed by Lee et al. (1991), the BEPSI (Brief Encounter Psychosocial Instrument) by Frank & Zyzanski (1988), Zung's self rating depression scale (1965) and life style items including exercise, sleep, drinking, smoking and diet as developed by the researchers. RESULTS: Those who complained of fatigue over six months experienced higher disturbances in their daily life compared to those who had suffered from fatigue less than six months. There were a significant correlation between severity of fatigue and depression (r=0.46, p<.001), stress (r=0.41, p<.001), and sleep (r=0.20, p<.01) Statistically significant relationships were found between severity of fatigue and amount of exercise per week (F=3.79, p<.05), disturbed sleep (t=-2.66, p<.01), number of times awakened during the night (F=3.48, p<.05), types of drinking (F=2.65, p<.05), and diet regularity (F=5.83, p<.01). The construction of a multiple regression model revealed an adjusted R2 of .27 with the depression score serving the major predictor variables for severity of fatigue. Men and people in the younger age group were more energetic than women and those in other age groups. Also married people experienced more fatigue than people who were single, divorced or separated. CONCLUSION: In nursing interventions for fatigue, medical personnel should consider sociodemographic characteristics of the clients, ways to reduce of stress and counter disturbances in daily life and develop strategies for a health promoting life style.
Subject(s)
Adult , Female , Humans , Male , Depression , Diet , Divorce , Drinking , Fatigue , Life Style , Nursing , Smoke , SmokingABSTRACT
Malaria, one of the compulsory notifiable diseases, has been diappeared from Korea based on that fact no notification on malaria case was received from local health agencies during the last decade or so. Recently, Indigenous malaria has been re-emerged since 1993 and 549 cases was notificated till 1996. We conducted a surveillance system on the resurgent malaria outbreaks in the northern area of Kyonggi Province around the Imjin River. Malaria Surveillance Networks(MSNs) were established in Paju and Yoncheon between August 1996 and December 1996. When a febrile patient visits a clinic or a hospital, clinician takes a blood sample and refer to district malaria laboratory for the sample. The blood sample is examined in the malaria laboratory(public health center), and if malaria parasites are found, a radical or curative treatment is offered to patients. MSNs took 94 febrile cases and identified 23 malaria cases(24.5%). All malaria cases were infected by the indigenous vivax malaria. In Paju, 14 of 62 febrile cases(22.6%) were malaria outbreaks and 9 of 32 febrile cases(28.1%) in Yoncheon. In Korea resurgent malaria, malaria surveillance system should be operated for a program based on the district public health center with the coupled laboratory and dispensary.