Analysis and Avoidance of Errors in Insulin Administration by Means of Quality Control (QC) Methods / 日本農村医学会雑誌

The Saku Central Hospital classified muscular relaxants, potassium products and the like as “high-risk medicines”, but when it came to insulin, did not take any standardized measure against it to prevent accidents. Having organized a team of personnel from a wide variety of job, our hospital has recently carried out a campaign for improvements in medical care. With pharmacists playing a leading role, we grappled with measures for the prevention of errors in the administration of insulin using quality control (QC) methods. As a consequence, the campaign served to decrease the number of medical mistakes. As there still occur many incidents involving medication, the role played in risk management by pharmacists remains significant. In future, pharmacists will hopefully play a constructive role in risk management to prevent medical incidents involving medical supplies. That said, a campaign for improvements inmedical care through the practical use of QC methods seems likely to bring about favorable results.

BASAL METABOLIC RATE AND ITS DETERMINANTS IN POSTMENOPAUSAL WOMEN / 体力科学

The basal metabolic rate (BMR) of 70 postmenopausal women (age: 60.6±4.2 yrs., height: 154.9±5.2cm, body weight (BW) : 52.7±6.2kg; mean ±SD) was evaluated in relation to body composition (body fat mass (FM) : 17.3±3.9kg, lean body mass (LBM) : 35.3±3.6kg) . BMR was 1, 148±126kcal/day, 21.9±2.2kcal/kgBW/day, 32.7±3.2kcal kgLBM/day in all subjects. BMR (kcal/day) significantly correlated with BW (r=.635, p<0.001) and LBM (r=.598, p<0.001) . When divided into two groups, (lower %fat group (LF; <35%fat) and higher %fat group (HF; ≥35%fat) ), BW and FM were significantly higher in HF than in LF (BW: 56.6±6.4 vs 51.0±5.3 kg, FM: 21.7±2.8 vs 15.5±2.7 kg, p<0.001, respectively) . No difference was observed in LBM between the two groups (34.9±3.9 vs 35.5±3.5 kg) . BMR (kcal/kgBW/day) was lower in HF than in LF (21.0±1.8 vs 22.3±2.3, p<0.05), but HF group had higher BMR in terms of kcal/kgLBM/ day than LF (34.0±3.1 vs 32.1±3.1, p<0.05) . Multiple regression analysis was performed to predict BMR. A single predictor LBM and a pair of predictors LBM and FM explained 35.7% and 42.7% of the variance of BMR. This study suggested that a decrease in LBM is a major factor in affecting the reduction of BMR in postmenopausal women, whereas FM gained after menopause could be considered to have metabolic activity related to BMR.