• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.147-160
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• 2007

This research challenges the general notion of one-person households of the elderly during widowhood as impoverished, isolated, and vulnerable. Recognizing a high potential vulnerability, however, this research attempts to describe the diverse composition of one-person households of the elderly. For this purpose, relying on 2% sample data from the 2000 census, it examines regional distribution, socio-economic characteristics, and determinants of one-person households of the elderly during widowhood. Socio-economic characteristics of one-person households of the elderly differ by region. Jeju island is distinct in terms of sex and age distribution, and residence area of children. In general, rates of economic activity and self-subsistence are higher in provinces than in cities. Compared to the elderly living with family, the elderly living alone show high rates of economic activity, self-subsistence, and capability of physical activity. Results of logistic regression analysis of determinants of living arrangement are consistent with those of descriptive statistics. Those who are economically active and able to move around without assistance tend to live alone after the death of a spouse. Number of sons and living in an urban area are negatively associated with living alone, whereas females are more likely than males to live alone. According to the separate analysis by age, the positive effect of economic activity is greater in the oldest of the old than in other age groups. Those who possess high educational attainment tend to live alone when they are 80 and older, unlike other age groups. Based on these findings, this paper finds that one-person households of the elderly nay not always be the most vulnerable group, and are diverse in terms of socioeconomic characteristics.

• Korean Journal of Artificial Intelligence
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.15-21
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• 2021

This paper conducted a feasibility study by applying an Internet of Things and Artificial intelligence-based management system for the elderly living alone in an aging society. The number of single-person families over the age of 50 is expected to increase, and problems such as health, safety, and loneliness may occur due to aging. Therefore, by establishing an IoT-based care system for the elderly living alone, a stable service was developed through securing a rapid response system for the elderly living alone and automatically reporting 119. The participants of the demonstration test were subjects under the jurisdiction of the "Seongnam Senior Complex," and the data collection rate between the IoT sensor and the emergency safety gateway was high. During the demonstration period, as a result of evaluating the satisfaction of the IoT-based care system for the elderly living alone, 90 points were achieved. We are currently in the COVID-19 situation. Therefore, the number of elderly living alone is continuously increasing, and the number of people who cannot benefit from care services will continue to occur. Also, even if the COVID-19 situation is over, the epidemic will happen again. So the care system is essential. The elderly care system developed in this way will provide safety management services based on artificial intelligence-based activity pattern analysis, improving the quality of in-house safety services.

• 한국노년학
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.1015-1033
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to examine the meaning and essence of the life of elderly men living alone in public rental housing. Among the phenomenological study methods, the present study used the analysis method proposed by Giorgi(2009). The study participants included 10 elderly men living alone in public rental housing who were recruited through network sampling. The research data were collected through in-depth interviews conducted twice for each person. The results showed that living alone as an elderly man is likened to standing against cold wind out in the wilderness of the world, with living alone deemed a power game between life and death. For the participants, public rental housing is a fence that separates them from the world-the final station of a wandering life. For common people, public rental housing is a stable fence, but for the participants, it is the location of a double-edged solitary life out in the wilderness where the instincts for survival and death play a tug of war. Based on the study findings, the researcher discussed and provided suggestions for psychological housing stability, the disparagement of the elderly in mass media, and countermeasures against psychological isolation.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.47-54
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• 2001

Objectives : To analyze factors associated with elderly falls in a community dwelling, a comparatively important, but somewhat neglected, health mailer. Methods : Data came from personal interview surveys using a questionnaire of 552 people aged 65 or older living in a community. Socioeconomic, and health related characteristics were investigated as independent variables and experiences of falling in the previous year as the dependent variable. Results : 118(21.4%) of the elderly subjects experienced a fall in the previous year. 24 subjects experienced more than two falls, accounting for 20.3% of the elderly fall victims studied. Factors affecting the falls were families living together, level of daily activity, heart disease, and aconuresis;, therefore an elderly person who lives alone, lives independently, has heart disease, or suffers urinary incontinence had a demonstrated increased chance of failing. Conclusion : Groups at risk for luting included elderly persons living alone, living independently, suffering heart disease, or experiencing urinary incontinence. When an elderly fall prevention program is developed and implemented, these results should be considered.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2022.10a
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• pp.242-244
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• 2022

In recent years, the number of single-person households is increasing with the aging of the population and the number of the elderly living alone is increasing rapidly with the aging of the population. Therefore, the lonely death of the elderly living alone has become a social issue. In many cases, the body is discovered several days after death. In particular, lonely death of the elderly living alone is being taken more seriously in society, as there is no one to arrange funerals, organize and dispose of their belongings. Since the body is usually found after a few days, the decomposition of the body is often severe. Therefore, this paper proposes an indoor monitoring system using a temperature and humidity sensor and a human body sensor to prevent and respond to lonely deaths in the elderly living alone.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.69-76
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of health control behaviors on the emotional happiness of the elderly. Among the survey instruments used in this study, emotional hapiness was the tool developed by Watson et al., 1978, and health control behavior was used by tools developed by Wallston et al., in 1988. Health control behaviors consist of three sub-factors: other health control behavior, accidental health control behavior, and internal health control behavior. The data collection period was collected from June 20 to July 5, 2018. A total of 152 participants were enrolled from 65 to 85 years old and were collected from six provinces of Korea (Seoul, Gangwon Province, Gyeongsang Province, Jeolla Province, Chungcheong Province, Gyeonggi Province) as much as possible. As a result of the analysis of demographic characteristics, the number of elderly people couple living was 47.4%, living alone was 21.1%, the number of people living with a couple and their children was 13.8%, the others were 10.5%. Based on the above results, 21.1% were living alone as an elderly person. And people who the highest monthly income of less than 1 million won was 36.8%, the usual meal type, 94.7% were very much eaten with vegetarianism smoking and drinking alcohol, and 94.7% did not smoke and 73.7% drank alcohol. In conclusion, Multiple regression analysis of health control behaviors on emotional happiness showed that health control behaviors had a 15% effect on emotional happiness. The following suggestions were made through the results of this study. First, the monthly income of the elderly is very low to maintain health, Second, the health of elderly people was maintained through friends and meetings. Based on these results, it should be used as a basic data for the program for the emotional happiness of the elderly.

• Advances in Computational Design
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.73-90
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• 2019

The growth in the number of single-member households is a critical issue worldwide, especially among the elderly. For those living alone, who may be unaware of their health status or routines that could improve their health, a continuous healthcare monitoring system could provide valuable feedback. Assessing the performance adequacy of activities of daily living (ADL) can serve as a measure of an individual's health status; previous research has focused on determining a person's daily activities and extracting the most frequently performed behavioral patterns using camera recordings or wearable sensing techniques. However, existing methods used to extract common patterns of an occupant's activities in the home fail to address the spatio-temporal dimensions of human activities simultaneously. Though multiple sequence alignment (MSA) offers some advantages - such as inherent containment of the spatio-temporal data in sequence format, and rapid identification of hidden patterns - MSA has rarely been used to extract in-home ADL routines. This research proposes a method to extract a household occupant's ADL routines from a cumulative spatio-temporal data log of occupancy collected using a non-intrusive method (i.e., a tomographic motion detection system). The findings from an occupant's 28-day spatio-temporal activity log demonstrate the capacity of the proposed approach to identify routine patterns of an occupant's daily activities and to reveal the order, duration, and frequency of routine activities. Routine ADL patterns identified from the proposed approach are expected to provide a basis for detecting/evaluating abrupt or gradual changes of an occupant's ADL patterns that result from a physical or mental disorder, and can offer valuable information for home automation applications by enabling the prediction of ADL patterns.

• 재활복지
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.31-54
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to explore the improvement method of the emergency safety system as a social protection scheme for the elderly living alone with severe disabilities. The study was conducted by randomly choosing three regions in the metropolitan area (Jongno-gu, Seoul), the small-medium city (Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do) and the rural area (Geochang-gun, Gyeongsangnam-do) among 17 cities and counties nationwide. The study method is based on the interview form of the structured questionnaires with city officials, county officials, and center operators. According to the results of the interview analysis, it was recognized that there was a need for an emergency safety system for the elderly living alone with severe disabilities. In spite of this necessity, there were problems about publicity for the discovery of victims of the blind spot in welfare, about inconvenience due to frequent malfunctions of the emergency equipment, about insufficient awareness of the security of the emergency officials and about supply and demand of manpower for 24-hour monitoring service. In order to improve the effective operation of the emergency safety system, it was the most urgent issue to formulate the legislation for responding to the crisis management of the vulnerable. A suggestion of this study is to build a safety system in which one-stop service is provided for the realization of compact welfare through the establishment of a MOU for linkage with community organizations, the full inspection of emergency equipment to solve safety equipment malfunction problems and the manpower supplement for 24-hour monitoring.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.398-404
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• 2017

The present study aimed to examine the influence of mental health factors on oral health factors using data from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES). A total of 1,548 elderly individuals aged over 65 years who completed the screening and health questionnaire were selected as the final study participants. The psychological health factors related to perceived oral health status were depression and stress when the gender was controlled, and in terms of gender, both elderly male and female individuals were stressed and depressed. These results suggested that the psychological health of elderly individuals negatively affects not only perceived oral health but also the quality of life. In addition, the psychological health of the elderly individuals should be systematically managed along with oral health care and overall health care and lifestyle. If a comprehensive health management system is available for low-income groups or an elderly person living alone, it should positively affect and improve the quality of life of elderly individuals.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.243-250
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• 2018

This paper designs and implements a smart care system for the senior citizen who lives alone. Recently, as the level of living has increased due to the rapid improvement of medicine, living standard and environment, the proportion of the elderly population is increasing. In addition, the proportion of the elderly living alone, which is increasing with the aging society, suggests that the provision of services such as the elder care system and emergency notification is becoming an important issue. However, since the existing emergency notification technology analyzes fixed CCTV images, it is difficult to monitor in the blind spot of CCTV and to move to a place where the camera is not installed. There is a problem that it can not be performed. Therefore, in this paper, we design and develop a smart care system that utilizes robot and object tracking technology that can move in real time to overcome these shortcomings. This enables real-time monitoring regardless of the location, and prompts for assistance in case of an emergency, so that it can provide convenience to cares and assistants.