• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.199-204
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• 2016

Objectives Although forgetfulness is a common complaint among menopausal depressed women, there is still a debate about the relationship between memory impairment and menopause. The aim of this study is to examine whether menopause is related to cognitive decline among women with depressive disorders. We hypothesized that postmenopausal depressed women show generally poorer performance than premenopausal depressed women on various cognitive function tests. Methods With a retrospective chart review, we identified a total of 87 female patients (45 premenopausal patients and 42 postmenopausal patients) who were hospitalized with depressive disorders from 2000 to 2016. Demographic and clinical variables and cognitive test results were compared between two groups. Results Education year is longer in premenopausal group than postmenopausal group whereas clinical characteristics (illness duration, recurrence, and symptom severity) and mean Intelligence Quotient (IQ) were similar between two groups. The postmenopausal group took longer time for Bender-Gestalt Test (BGT) recall, Trail Making Test (TMT)-A, and TMT-B than the premenopausal group. After controlling for age and education, significant difference was remained for BGT recall (p = 0.029). Conclusions Postmenopausal state may be related with decline of visuospatial memory function, in particular, among depressed female patients. Other areas of cognitive function including complex attention, verbal memory, auditory memory, and working memory might be interpreted while considering age and education level.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.13-22
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• 2017

Purpose: The aim of this study is to examine the reciprocal causal relationship between social activities and health with reference to the cognitive function level among community-dwelling older adults. Methods: We conducted a longitudinal data analysis using the $4^{th}$ (Time 1) and $5^{th}$ (Time 2) waves from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing adopting cross-lagged panel analysis (CLPA). Results: A total of 3,473 community-dwelling older adults were included in the analysis: 2,053 in the normal cognitive function group, 912 in the mild cognitive impairment group, and 508 in the moderate to severe cognitive impairment group. The CLPA revealed that higher levels of social activities at Time 1 significantly influenced better subjective health perception at Time 2 in all three groups. In addition, better subjective health perception at Time 1 significantly influenced higher levels of social activities at time 2 only in the normal cognitive function group. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that participating in social activities has positive effects on health regardless of the cognitive function level in community-dwelling older adults. This finding suggests that there is a need to develop strategies that can be used to encourage older adults with cognitive decline to maintain participation in social activities.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.107-115
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• 2009

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the effects of an exercise program on frontal lobe cognitive function in seniors. Methods: The participants were 42 seniors using a health center in Seoul (experimental group) and 28 seniors using a facility for elders in Seoul (control group). The exercise program was carried out for 16 weeks from April to August 2007. The frontal lobe cognitive function, which includes short term memory, attention, immediate memory, delayed memory, verbal fluency and motor function, was measured by the Digit Span Forward test, Trail Making test, Immediate recall words test, Delayed recall words, Controlled oral word association test and Finger tapping test. The collected data were analyzed by Fisher's exact test, Chi-square, t-test, and ANCOVA using the SAS program. Results: The major findings of this study were as follows: Attention (p=.009), immediate memory (p=.005), delayed memory (p=.009), and verbal fluency (p=.004) improved after the exercise program. Conclusion: In this study, the exercise program was effective in improving frontal lobe cognitive function in elders. So it provides basic information for further nursing education on exercise programs which will be effective for prevention of early cognitive function decline in normally aging elders.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.313-322
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• 2010

Purpose : This study was to evaluate the effects of cognitive rehabilitation training on the cognitive decline of dementia patients. Therefore the purpose of this study was to examine the influence of brain activation according to bio-feedback training in dementia. Methods : Ten dementia patients were recruited this study. Experiment was performed for 30min per session, five times a week through 4 week and two measurements before and after bio-feedback training. Brain activity was measured by Korea Electroencephalogram(EEG) system. Statistical analysis was used Wilcoxon signed rank test to know difference of EEG between pre and post-test in each group and Mann-Whitney U test was to know difference between experimental and control group. Results : Significant improvement of slow-alpha wave was observed following bio-feedback in experiment group. There was no significant change in experiment and control group. Conclusion : In this study, the bio-feedback training was effective in improving slow-alpha wave in dementia patients. It is suggested that bio-feedback training with dementia patients can be useful to ameliorate the cognitive decline. And it will be effective for prevention of cognitive function decline.

• Journal of East-West Nursing Research
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.31-41
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• 2024

Purpose: This study aimed to identify factors affecting subjective cognitive decline (SCD) in men and women. Methods: This study was conducted based on data from the 2021 Korea Community Health Survey, and targeted a total of 80,026 men and 98,753 women aged 40 or older who responded to the SCD assessment. Multivariate logistic regression analysis using a complex sample was performed to identify factors influencing SCD. Results: Of the participants, 19,438 (22.7%) men and 30,826 (29.9%) women in the community reported SCD. Significant factors that influence SCD in both groups were age, education level, subjective health status, and depressive symptoms, and the strongest risk factor was depressive symptoms. Compared to women, men's monthly income, flexibility exercise, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus were found to be significant factors on SCD and Healthcare services affected SCD only in women. Medical services affected SCD only in women. Conclusions: When planning and providing intervention programs for cognitive function, it is necessary to reflect differences in factors associated with SCD according to sex.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.42-48
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• 2021

Objectives : Based on the fact that cognitive functions decline known as comorbid symptoms of depression can precede depression, this study seeks to observe the effects of depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms on cognitive function in healthy subjects. Methods : To recruit 50 general populations to evaluate cognitive and clinical symptoms and to find out the effects of clinical symptoms on cognitive functions, Pearson correlation and multivariate regression were conducted. Correlation analysis of subdomain cognitive function was conducted for reliability analysis. Results : Trail making test-B that evaluates the execution function correlates with depressive symptoms (r=0.300, p=0.03) and age (r=0.323, p=0.02). Depressive symptoms (β=0.304, p=0.03) and age (β=0.335, p=0.01) were significantly related to Trail making test -B (Adjusted R²=0.148). Subjective cognitive tests correlates with anxiety symptoms (r=0.434, p=0.002). In the correlation between cognitive functional items, Subjective cognitive tests was found to be correlated with other test except Spotter. Conclusions : In this study, depressive symptoms contribute independently to executive functions in addition to demographic characteristics such as age and duration of education. Given that cognitive decline is a common long-term clinical outcome in depression, we expect active early intervention and evaluation of cognitive function to be helpful.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.644-658
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• 2012

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the cognitive effects of chemotherapy in patients with breast cancer. Methods: Using several databases, prospective studies were collected up to August 2011. Of 2,106 publications identified, 12 met the inclusion criteria, and 8 studies were used to estimate the effect size of chemotherapy on cognitive impairment. Results: Twelve studies were done since 2005 and most of the research was performed in Europe or North America. Eight studies were used to generate effect size across the cognitive domains of attention/concentration, verbal and visual memory, executive function, visuospatial skill, language, and subjective cognitive function. Each of the cognitive domains showed small effect sizes (-0.02 ~ -0.26), indicating diminished cognitive function for the chemotherapy group compared with non-chemotherapy groups. Conclusion: Finding suggests that breast cancer patients who undergo chemotherapy may experience mild cognitive decline. Further study is needed to generate knowledge and guideline for interventions to address chemotherapy related cognitive impairment in these patients.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Integrative Medicine
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.21-31
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• 2020

Purpose : The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of a cognitive-exercise program using step on the cognitive function, gait, and depression of elderly with mild cognitive impairment. Methods : The subjects comprised 30 elderly people with mild cognitive impairment who used elderly welfare centers in the provinces A, B, and C between March 21 and June 7, 2019. They were divided into an experimental group (n=15) and a control group (n=15) before undergoing an experiment based on a pretest-posttest control group design. The lowenstein occupational therapy cognitive assessment-geriatric population was used to assess the subjects' cognitive function, while the 4-stage balance test, 30-second chair-stand test, timed up & go test, and functional reach test were employed to evaluate their gait. In addition, the beck depression inventory was used to measure their levels of depression. Results : The cognitive-exercise program using step enhanced the subjects' cognitive function and gait and reduced their levels of depression. Furthermore, statistically significant differences were found between the experimental group and the control group. Conclusion : The cognitive-exercise program using step promoted the process of sensorimotor and cognition through the learning process of various steps taking left and right steps and cognitive activities. It improves gait by activating the coordination of the musculoskeletal and nervous systems of the body and positively affecting posture control, balance, flexibility, and lower extremity muscles. It also relieved depression by performing successful step learning and cognitive activities with forward-looking (doing) that leads to pleasure and achievement. The present study confirmed the value of a cognitive-exercise program using step to treat multiple domains of functional decline in elderly patients with mild cognitive impairment. This is therefore proposed as an intervention program for this patient group.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.283-292
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• 2019

The loss of semantic knowledge and impairments in semantic associations by semantic category is gaining increasing attention, as indicators of early-stage cognitive decline. As such, we assigned semantic association task (SAT) to normal elderly (NE) and those with subjective memory impairment (SMI) or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to examine their performance by semantic subcategories and the differences in error patterns. We found a significant difference in the number of correct response and reaction time under the SAT categories among the three groups, with the highest performance observed in 'function' and the lowest performance in 'superordinate' and 'part/whole'. Moreover, the error frequency was the lowest in NE, followed by those with SMI and MCI, with the latter two groups showing a significant increase in no-response. Our findings demonstrate the varying extent and process of impairments in the semantic network by category over different stages of cognitive decline. Thus, we proposed SAT performance as an indicator to detect and follow-up on cognitive decline in elderly with cognitive disorder.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.23-36
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• 2016

Objectives: This study aims to define the relationships between the sensory, cognitive and physical functions of young-old and old-old individuals. Methods: Participants were 10,451 elderly individuals aged 65 and above, raw data of a 2014 National Survey on Korean Older Persons was used. To investigate the relationships among the sensory, cognitive, and physical functions, a structural equation model was used. Results: The key analysis results are summarized as follows; 5% had poor vision function(young-old 3.5%, old-old 7.1%), 3.8% had poor auditory function(young-old 1.7%, old-old 6.7%), 33.0% had decline in cognitive function(young-old 30.9%, old-old 35.7%), 3.6% were disabled(young-old 1.6%, old-old 6.3%) and cognitive function influences physical function more greatly than does sensory function. Additionally, in the young-old groups, vision among sensory functions, attention among cognitive functions, and IADL among physical functions, turned out to be the most influential. However, in the old-old groups, auditory function among sensory functions, orientation among cognitive functions, and IADL among physical functions, turned out to be the most influential. Conclusions: This study implies that functions in the young-old and old-old individuals must be considered with all three functions-sensory, cognitive, and physical-together at the same time and that this comprehensive approach is necessary in national policy making.