The purpose of this study was to identify the effects of heating on the non-affected hand on blood flow velocity, wound healing, and pain for hand microsurgery patients.

This study was designed using the nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design. Thirty-nine patients were assigned either to the experimental group (20 patients) or control group (19 patients). Data were analyzed with χ²-test, Fisher's exact test, t-test, and repeated measure ANOVA using SPSS/WIN 17.0 program.

After treatment in this program, blood flow velocity (F=5.13, p=.008) and wound healing (F=4.11, p=.020) improved significantly in the experimental group compared to the control group. But there was no significant improvement in pain in the experimental group compared to the control group (F=2.40, p=.097).

Based upon these results, the non-affected side hand heating was recommended as an independent nursing intervention for the patients who need improvement in blood flow velocity and wound healing such as patients who have microsurgery. As the heating was effective even when applied on the non-affected side, it is the applicable to patients who cannot tolerate any therapy on affected side.

This study was done to evaluate the mean venous velocity (MVV) response with knee and thigh length compression stockings (CS) versus intermittent pneumatic compression (IPC) devices in immobile patients with brain injuries.

We carried out a randomized controlled study. We analyzed both legs of a randomly chosen sample of 43 patients assigned to one of 4 groups (86 legs). The patients were sequentially hospitalized in the intensive care unit (ICU) in "S hospital" from November 2005 to December 2006. The base line and augmented venous velocity was measured at the level of the common femoral vein. We applied leg compression 42 times over 7 days (for 2 hours at a time at 2 hour intervals).

There was a statistical difference among the 4 groups. The difference for the "IPC" group was more significant than the "CS" group.

These results indicate that the application of IPC can be considered as an effective method to prevent deep vein thrombosis for immobile patients with brain injury.