Past, and Here-and-Now of Group Therapy in Korea / 신경정신의학

OBJECTIVES: A group therapy includes various types: group psychotherapy, psychodrama, activity therapy including occupational therapy as well as recreation therapy, art therapy of drawing, music, dancing and drama. It has long been in use for in-patients, and became more trendy at day hospitals and community mental health centers after the enactment of a mental health law. It was surprising that a few researches have been made in the field, including a basic fact finding and that a few Korean psychiatrists have been inclined toward it. Meanwhile, we finished a research work on: how a group therapy has been conducted so far, its current status across the country, possibly the best way to heal, and deal with, psychiatric patients. METHODS: The 1997 annual report by Korean Neuropsychiatric Association, has been available for random sampling in the following categories: training hospital, general hospital, psychiatric hospital, clinic with admissions, clinic without admissions, day hospital, community mental health center. Telephone polls were conducted on contents of frequency and status of a group therapy available with psychodrama, main therapists, co-therapists, duration & times of therapy, size of group therapy recipients etc. RESULTS: The group therapy is broken down into the order of percentage; Art therapy(30.9%), Activity therapy(28.4%), Group psychotherapy(27.2%), Others(24.1%), Large group therapy(23.2%), with the psychodrama(10.9) least of all. Against in-patients(61.6%), the group psychotherapy shows its greatest diagnosis for a combined gorup(51.4%), and finds its biggest type in a general group(83.2%), Against in-patients(65.3%), the psychodrama diagnosis is mostly conducted for a combined group (69.4%). For a main therapist, the group psychotherapy is taken care of by boardmen(31.1%), and social workers(29.5%), while psychodrama by psychiatric boardmen(36.1%), and social workers(36.1%). On the other hand, for a co-therapist, the group psychotherapy is done by nurse(40.8%), while psychodrama by social workers(25.9%), and volunteers(23.5%). At a time most group psychotherapies takes some 60 minutes, psychodrama 120 minutes. Group therapies take place each once a week. Its participation amounts to 26.0(+/-17.8) for a psychodrama, and to 11.0(+/-5.8) for a group psychotherapy. Clinics with admission rooms(83.6%), exceedingly enjoy more group therapy than ones without (2.2%). CONCLUSION: The group therapy is run at most hospitals as the main part of a psychiatric treatment. However, the job has been undertaken on a small scale by outpatient clinics as well as psychiatric boardmen. Therefore, more attention is urged toward a group therapy, its professional training, plus its more brisk business at outpatient clinics.

A Case of Granulomatous Pancreatitis Caused by Syphilis / 대한내과학회지

Granulomatous pancreatitis is a granulomatous inflammatory disease of the pancreas and can he described only in infectious granulomas and pancreatic involvement by systemic granulomatosis. Sarcoidosis, isolated pancreatic involvement without systemic granulomatosis or a manifestation of systemic sarcoidosis, is more common cause of granulo-mataus pancreatitis than infectious granuloma. There has been some reports show a characteristic histological finding of the pancreatic involvement of sarcoidasis. Noncaseating granuloma is thought to be the characteristic finding of pancreatic sarcoidosis. But granulomatous pancreatitis caused by syphilis in a syrnptomatic patient is a very rare disease and, till now, to our knowledge, only a case was reported in 1987, Germany. We experienced a 55-year-old female patient with granulomatous pancreatitis caused by tertiary syphilis who presented as a recent onset jaundice, diarrhea, fatigue and vague epigastric discomfort. Radical pancreaticoduo-denectomy was performed, which showed noncaseating granulomatous pancratitis with vasculitis. To our knowledge, this is the first case of granulomatous pancreatitis caused by syphilis in Korea. We hereby report a case of granulomatous pancreatitis caused by syphilis with a brief review of literature.

Comparative Study of Signal-Averaged Electrocardiogram between Time Domain Analysis and Spectral Turbulence Analysis by 24-hr Holter Monitoring / 대한내과학회지

OBJECTIVES: Signal-averaged electrocardiography (SAECG) has been found to be a useful noninvasive technique for identifying patients at risk for life-threatening ventricular tachycardia. Delayed and fragmented activation of abnormal myocardial tissues causes the occurrence of high frequency low amplitude (HFLA) electocardiographic signals or late potentials. Generally, there are two methods in analyzing signal-averaged electrocardiography. Late potentials in the time domain analysis do not provide sufficient diagnostic power with regard to life-threatening Ventricular tachycardia. Buckingham et al. (1989) reported a time-domain sensitivity of 62%, a specificity of 75%. Spectral turbulence analysis (STA) of the signal-averaged ECG is the most recent frequency domain technique to improve the time domain sensitivity and specificity. So, We designed the study to compare the efficacy of Time Domain Analysis and Spectral Turbulence Analysis among five groups (Normal control, QRS widening, Postmyocardial infarction, Frequent VPC's with group beats, Nonsustained ventricular tachycardia). METHODS: 88 patients were selected from the patients who had been admitted between January 1994 and October l994, at National Medical Center. Patients were divided into five groups, which were respectively, Group A: Normal control group (n=33), Group B: QRS widening group (n=14), Group C: Postmyocardial infarction group (n=10), Group D: Frequent VPC's with group beats (n=22), Group E: Nonsustained VT group (n=9). We compared Spectral Turbulence Analysis and Time Domain Analysis of Signal-Averaged Electrocardiogram by 24 hours-Holter monitoring. RESULTS: 1) In normal control group(Group A), 9.1%(3 patients) were positive by Time Domain Analysis, but, all were negative by Spectral Turbulence Analysis. 2) In QRS widening group (Group B), 71.4%(10 patients) were positive by Time Domain Analysis, but, all were negative by Spectral Turbulence Analysis. 3) In postmyocardial infarction group (Group C), 309o were positive by Time Domain Analysis, and 10% were positive by Spectral Turbulence Analysis. 4) In frequent VPC's group (Group D), 22.7% (5 patients) were positive by Time Domain Analysis, and, 4.5%(1 patient) was positive by Spectral Tur-bulence Analysis. 5) In Nonsustained VT group (Group E), 33.3% (3 patients) were positive by Time Domain Analysis, and 11.1% (1 patient) was positive by Spectral Turbulence Analysis. CONCLUSIONS: In Time Domain Analysis, abnormal results were presented at Group R (QRS widening group) by 71.4%, which was markedly higher than other groups. But, in Spectral Turbulence Analysis, abnormal results were not presented at Group A and Group B. In Group A and Group B, Spectral Turbulence Analysis shows less false positive results than Time Domain Analysis.

A Case of Xanthogranulomatous Cholecystitis / 대한내과학회지

Xanthogranulomatous cholecystitis is an extremely rare benign inflammatory disease of the gall bladder characterized by yellowish focal nodular appearance with tissue necrosis and lipid-containing histiocyte (xanthomacell). Recently, we experienced a case of xanthogranulomatous cholecystitis. A 71-year old woman was admitted with the complaints of RUQ pain for 1 month. On abdominal ultrasound examination, there were diffuse gallbladder wall thickening, echogenic nodule with acoustic shadow, the calculous cholecystiti and the gall badder cancer were strongly suspected and the operation was performed. At operation the gall bladder was marked enlarged and wall thickening with two brownish, oval shaped, smooth surfaced stones. The specimen was revealed a xanthogranulomatous cholecystitis by the pathology.