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To examine the effects of shift schedules on fatigue and physiological functions among firefighters a 17-day field study at a fire station was carried out. Eleven firefighters, who were engaged in firefighting emergency services, participated in this study. At the fire station, night duty (22:00-07:00) was divided into 5 periods (P1: 22:00-00:00; P2: 23:45-01:45; P3: 01:30-03:30; P4: 03:15-05:15; P5: 05:00-07:00). The participants were assigned to one of these 5 periods and awakened to answer calls from the city's central information centre. They took naps in individual rooms during night duty, except when on night shift or when called out on an emergency. Subjective complaints of fatigue, critical flicker fusion frequencies, 3-choice reaction times, and oral temperature were measured before and after work and following breaks during their 24 working hours. Heart rate variability was also recorded to evaluate autonomic nerve activity. The results show that during P3 and P4, participants who had to wake up at midnight took shorter naps. The rates of subjective complaints regarding P3 and P4 tended to be higher than those for P1, P2, and P5. The ratios of the low frequency component of heart rate variability to the high frequency component during P4 were significantly lower than those during P5. It is assumed that such an irregular sleeping pattern causes many complaints of subjective fatigue, and adversely affects physiological functions. A night-duty shift schedule ensuring undisturbed naps should be considered.

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BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Trazodone hydrochloride is used in the treatment of neuropathic pain. However, the analgesic effects of trazodone on neuropathic pain are controversial. The study was undertaken to determine the analgesic effect of trazodone on a chronic constriction injury model. METHODS: We tested the effect of trazodone on thermal hyperalgesia due to a chronic constriction injury of the sciatic nerve in rats and examined the effects of lesions in the descending and ascending serotonergic system induced by 5,7-dihydroxytriptamine (5,7-DHT). RESULTS: The analgesic effects of trazodone showed a clear dose dependency. Furthermore, the analgesic effect of trazodone was observed in rats injected with 5,7-DHT into the dorsal raphe nucleus and medial raphe nucleus. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that a mainly serotonergic descending pain control pathway mediates the analgesic effects of trazodone.

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Much has been said about the importance of informed consent in Japan, but informing cancer to the patient has not been popular so far. We, as anesthesiologists, often treat pain in cancer patients, who occasionally, are not informed about the cancer. And we sometimes have patients with whom cautious consulting is necessary. This report presents our experience with a patient uninformed about the cancer but suspicious of his lung cancer. We met him as anesthesiologists, and this made the patient convinced that he had a cancer and was about to die soon.

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To clarify the influence of the head-up position on cerebral oxygen metabolism during laparoscopy with CO2 insufflation in 12 patients who underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy, changes in the concentrations of cerebral oxyhemoglobin (HbO2), deoxyhemoglobin (Hb), total hemoglobin (total Hb) and oxidized cytochrome aa3 (Cyt aa3) were measured by use of near-infrared laser spectroscopy. Anesthesia was maintained with nitrous oxide (66%), oxygen, and sevoflurane. Pneumoperitoneum was maintained at an intraabdominal pressure of 10-12 mm Hg by use of CO2. Minute ventilation was adjusted to maintain end-tidal CO2 tension (P(ET)CO2) between 35 and 40 mm Hg during the procedure. Patients were moved from supine to the head-up (20 degree) position before intraabdominal manipulation. The concentration of HbO2 decreased significantly when patients were moved to the head-up position and 30 min thereafter. It remained significantly low after they were returned to the supine position and at the end of surgery. The concentration of Hb was unchanged during the study. Therefore, the concentration of total Hb decreased significantly when patients were moved to the head-up position, as well as 30 min thereafter. It remained significantly low after they were returned to the supine position and at the end of surgery. The concentration of Cyt aa3, however, did not change significantly during the study. These results suggest that the head-up position during laparoscopic cholecystectomy decreases cerebral HbO2 and total Hb.

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The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of fluid ingestion and its composition on uric acid metabolism after exercise. Six healthy males volunteered for the study which was comprised of three different experiments; Exp. 1, Exp. 2, and Exp. 3. In all the experiments, subjects performed treadmill exercise (70%VO2max) for 70 minutes respectively. For seven hours after exercise, subjects ingested mineral water at 10 degrees C ad-lib in Exp. 1, 1.5 times the volume of mineral water consumed in the first experiment in Exp. 2, and the same volume of sports drink as in the first experiment in Exp. 3. No significant differences were observed in oxygen uptake and heart rate during exercise among the three experiments, so it was considered that the produced serum uric acid (SUA) levels in the three experiments were about the same level. However, the decrease in SUA, urinary uric acid excretion (UUA), clearance of uric acid (CUA) and fractional excretion of uric acid (FEUA) in Exp. 3, in which the sports drink was consumed instead of mineral water were higher than in Exp. 1 and Exp. 2. On the other hand, no significant differences were found in Exp. 2 and Exp. 3. A significant relationship between UUA and FEUA was found among the three experiments, while there was no corrleation between UUA and urine volume. These results show that; 1) the sports drink ingestion can increase the efficiency of recovery from high serum uric acid after exercise, 2) the increase in uric volume due to high mineral water intake does not elevate UUA, and 3) the increase in UUA due to sports drink ingestion was associated with the increase of FEUA.

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We here report a patient with chronic pain who was treated with large doses of oral morphine. A 37-year-old female was diagnosed as Lyme disease and lumbar disc hernia. When she received lumbar puncture for myelography, she fainted due to severe pain in the legs. After this incident, her pain increased markedly, and she visited our outpatient clinic in 1996. After confirming the temporary pain relieving effect of caudal block, we prescribed oral morphine tablets 60 mg daily. The dose of morphine necessary to relieve her pain increased gradually to 220 mg. But she did not develop dependence or side effects. However, when the daily dose of 300 mg was administered, she felt dizzy. We therefore performed lumbar sympathetic block with phenol. After the block, her conditions improved markedly at a dosage of 300 mg. In conclusion, our experience in this case has shown the effectiveness of long-term morphine use with non-cancer patients and the efficacy of nerve block to avoid increasing the morphine dosage.

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A 56-year-old woman with bronchomalacia underwent three consecutive operations for bronchoscopy, cautery YAG-laser, and the insertion of a stent under general anesthesia using a laryngeal mask airway (LMA). For the first operation, anesthesia was induced with ketamine 20 mg, diazepam 5 mg and pentazocine 20 mg. The patient was ventilated with N2O-O2-sevoflurane with a face mask. Then vecuronium 6 mg was administered intravenously and LMA was inserted blindly. Anesthesia was maintained with N2O-O2-sevoflurane during bronchoscopy. Immediately after the operation, the patient coughed and experienced dyspnea. The symptoms were alleviated using theophyllin, hydrocortisone and droperidol. For the second and third operations, anesthesia was induced with droperidol and fentanyl with N2O-O2. After administration of vecuronium, LMA was inserted. The patient was stable during the second and third operations compared with the first operation. It was concluded that LMA may be useful for anesthetic management of a patient with bronchomalacia.

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