• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.64 no.6
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• pp.995-1003
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• 2021

Objective : People are living longer and the elderly population continues to increase. The incidence of degenerative spinal diseases (DSDs) in the elderly population is quite high. Therefore, we are facing more cases of DSD and offering more surgical solutions in geriatric patients. Understanding the significance and association of frailty and central sarcopenia as risk factors for spinal surgery in elderly patients will be helpful in improving surgical outcomes. We conducted a retrospective cohort analysis of prospectively collected data to assess the impact of preoperative central sarcopenia, frailty, and comorbidity on surgical outcome in elderly patients with DSD. Methods : We conducted a retrospective analysis of patients who underwent elective spinal surgery performed from January 1, 2019 to September 30, 2020 at our hospital. We included patients aged 65 and over who underwent surgery on the thoracic or lumbar spine and were diagnosed as DSD. Central sarcopenia was measured by the 50th percentile of psoas : L4 vertebral index (PLVI) using the cross-sectional area of the psoas muscle. We used the Korean version of the fatigue, resistance, ambulation, illnesses, and loss of weight (K-FRAIL) scale to measure frailty. Comorbidity was confirmed and scored using the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI). As a tool for measuring surgical outcome, we used the Clavien-Dindo (CD) classification for postoperative complications and the length of stay (LOS). Results : This study included 85 patients (35 males and 50 females). The mean age was 74.05±6.47 years. Using the K-FRAIL scale, four patients were scored as robust, 44 patients were pre-frail and 37 patients were frail. The mean PLVI was 0.61±0.19. According to the CD classification, 50 patients were classified as grade 1, 19 as grade 2, and four as grade 4. The mean LOS was 12.35±8.17 days. Multivariate stepwise regression analysis showed that postoperative complication was significantly associated with surgical invasiveness and K-FRAIL scale. LOS was significantly associated with surgical invasiveness and CCI. K-FRAIL scale showed a significant correlation with CCI and PLVI. Conclusion : The present study demonstrates that frailty, comorbidity, and surgical invasiveness are important risk factors for postoperative complications and LOS in elderly patients with DSD. Preoperative recognition of these factors may be useful for perioperative optimization, risk stratification, and patient counseling.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.237-250
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• 2021

This study analyzed 'how the elderly's sexual relations and marital intimacy affect the elderly's life satisfaction'. Interviews and visits were conducted for 11 days targeting 309 elderly people aged 65 years or older. As a result of the analysis, 51% were male, 49% were female, and 84.7% were in their 60s and 70s. Approximately 60.1% of them were religious, of which 24.7% were protestants. In the region, 42.9% lived in rural and fishing villages. The percentage of those who answered that their health status was above average was 87.6%. Regarding the frequency of sexual life, 41.4% of the respondents said they had sex once or twice a month. Males had a higher frequency of sexual life than females. A lower age, higher education, living in small and medium-sized cities, better health status, and higher income level were associated with a higher frequency of sexual life. The factors that showed a significant difference in sex life satisfaction were gender, region, and health status. Those with religion as Protestantism, residing in a small or medium-sized city or over, with better health and higher income levels were found to have higher life satisfaction. The satisfaction with sex life had a positive correlation with emotional intimacy (p<.01) and life satisfaction (p<.01). Based on the above results, the sexual life satisfaction of the elderly has a positive effect on life satisfaction, and emotional intimacy between spouses had a positive influence on life satisfaction.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.267-276
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of physical activity in the elderly with osteoarthritis on stress and health-related quality of life (EQ-5D). This study performed data analysis using the SPSS 17.0 program in 104 elderly people with osteoarthritis over 65 years old using raw data from the 7th National Health and Nutrition Survey. The main results of this study are as follows: Males exercised more strength than women, and the better the subjective health status, the higher the rate of walking and aerobic activity. The group that felt stress showed a higher rate of walking and aerobic activity than the group that had no stress, and one group that felt a little stress practiced walking more than 3 days. The exercise ability of the elderly with osteoarthritis was better in the group who practiced walking, strength training, and aerobic activity than in the group without physical activity, and in self-management, the group practicing exercise and aerobic activity had problems with self-management. There was no daily activity, and the group that practiced walking and strength training also showed a high level of daily activity. In the area of pain/discomfort, the group practicing walking showed less pain/discomfort, and in the area of anxiety/depression, the group practicing walking showed less anxiety/depression. In conclusion, it is considered that in order to increase the quality of life of the elderly with osteoarthritis and to manage the stress, active efforts to increase the level of physical activity are necessary.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.71-80
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• 2017

Korea is facing various social problems including single elderly household, increase in the number of disabled people and poverty rate and a difference in the proportion of males to females between urban areas and rural areas along with the advent of rapid aging society. Especially, the ratio of poor households in rural areas residing in housing which falls below the minimum housing level and most of them are in the dead zone of housing welfare. In addition, if it is impossible for them to move (relocate) to new housing, the house remodeling is the only measure for improving their housing welfare. However, we don't have enough prior relevant academic and practical experience, and house remodeling requires a series of process including prior planning construction and post-occupancy evaluation, but almost no fundamental research that provides relevant insight has been carried out. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to describe all field situations that occur in the whole customized house remodeling process for disabled female senior citizens living alone in a rural area. The remodeling process was classified into initial planning stage, field verification and adjustment stage and construction stage as the method to participate in the field directly, and any change in the remodeling plan and its causes at each stage were analyzed. As a result, some remodeling items were changed from the main viewpoint of participating parties before the beginning of construction and for reasons such as the deterioration level of housing site, limitation in building equipment and rearrangement of housing, etc., and the remodeling method and its details were developed. It was identified that constant change that occurred in the remodeling process resulted from 1) unique poor characteristics of existing housing and 2) physical condition of residents and their unique lifestyle characteristics that were two aspects required to be emphasized by customized remodeling.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.21-30
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to investigate the variability to compare local dynamic stability via a linear and nonlinear analysis during walking. Twenty four elderly males, 12 healthy elderly and 12 patients with osteoarthritise walked on a treadmill for 100 consecutive strides. Lyapunov exponent and correlation dimension and coefficient variation were calculated for the kinematic parameters to determine the dynamic stability during walking. The linear measures indicated that the healthy elderly demonstrated significantly higher variability in the ankle joint displacement. The nonlinear analysis revealed that COD for the knee joint angle were higher in patient with osteoarthritise. There were no coincidence in results between linear and nonlinear techniques over two groups. In light of nonlinear analysis, it was concluded that patients with osteoathritise showed higher local instability during walking.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.31-37
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• 2016

Background: The assessment tool developed in other countries should be translated into Korean language using rigorous methodological approaches in order to be used in Korea. Because these procedures are insufficient for establishing the cross-cultural and linguistic equivalence, the need for statistical methods is raised. The Fullerton Advanced Balance Scale was translated into Korean and the content validity was verified through the back translation method, but the reliability and validity have not yet been proven by statistical methods. Objects: The purpose of this study was to investigate the reliability and validity of the Korean version of the Fullerton Advanced Balance Scale (KFAB) by statistical methods in elderly people. Methods: A total of 97 elderly adults (39 males and 58 females) participated in this study. Internal consistency of the KFAB was measured using Cronbach's alpha and an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was used to assess test-retest reliability between the two measurement sessions. Concurrent validity was measured by comparing the KFAB responses with the Korean version of the Berg Balance Scale (KBBS) using the Spearman correlation coefficient. Construct validity of the KFAB was measured using the exploratory factor analysis to evaluate the unidimensionality of the questionnaire. The significance level was set at ${\alpha}=.05$. Results: The internal consistency of the KFAB was found be adequate with Cronbach's alpha (.96), and test-retest reliability was excellent as evidenced by the high ICC (r=.996). Concurrent validity showed high correlation between the KFAB and KBBS (r=.89, p<.001). Construct validity was evaluated using exploratory factor analysis. The result from Bartlett test of sphericity was statistically significant (p<.001), and the value of Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was .93. Exploratory factor analysis revealed the existence of only one dominant factor that explained 76.43% of the variance. Conclusion: The KFAB is a reliable, valid and appropriate tool for measuring the balance functions in elderly people.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.195-205
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• 2016

Purpose: This study is to compare the difference in status between elderly individuals with and without a spouse. Methods: The study is based on the Fifth Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey(KNHAENS), between 2010 and 2012. Subjects were over the age of 65 years who participated in the survey. Chi-square test and logistic regression of complex sampling design of the KNHAENS and used the survey analysis method by SPSS (version 18). Results: Sleep time of female elders living alone was the shortest which was 2.59 times that of male elders living with a spouse. Stress awareness of female elders living with a spouse was the highest, which was 3.21 times that of male elders living with a spouse. Depression was the highest in female elders living alone, which was 2.26 times that of male elders living with a spouse. Suicidal idea was the strongest in female elders living alone, which was 2.87 times that of male elders living alone. Conclusion: Female elders living alone were weakest in regards to socio-economical aspect with the highest rate of poverty, low educational status, and unemployment. The mental health status of females was worse than that of males. In particular, the mental health status of females living alone was the worst.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.205-210
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• 2020

Objectives: Aging is assumed to be accompanied by greater health care expenditures. The objective of this retrospective, bottom-up micro-costing study was to identify and analyze the variables related to increased health care costs for the elderly from the provider's perspective. Methods: The analysis included all elderly inpatients who were admitted in 2017 to a hospital in Tehran, Iran. In total, 1288 patients were included. The Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used. Results: Slightly more than half (51.1%) of patients were males, and 81.9% had a partial recovery. The 60-64 age group had the highest costs. Cancer and joint/orthopedic diseases accounted for the highest proportion of costs, while joint/orthopedic diseases had the highest total costs. The surgery ward had the highest overall cost among the hospital departments, while the intensive care unit had the highest mean cost. No statistically significant relationships were found between inpatient costs and sex or age group, while significant associations (p<0.05) were observed between inpatient costs and the type of ward, length of stay, type of disease, and final status. Regarding final status, costs for patients who died were 3.9 times higher than costs for patients who experienced a partial recovery. Conclusions: Sex and age group did not affect hospital costs. Instead, the most important factors associated with costs were type of disease (especially chronic diseases, such as joint and orthopedic conditions), length of stay, final status, and type of ward. Surgical services and medicine were the most important cost items.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.392-399
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• 2016

This study examined the distribution of metabolic syndrome according to the age groups among the elderly people to reveal the sociodemographic and health related factors. The survey in 2011~2014 from the National Health Insurance Corporation under regular medical check-ups, which received a recognition survey targeted 1,756 people aged over 70. Multiple logistic regression was performed on the relation metabolic syndrome and its related factors. As a result, the risk ratio for metabolic syndrome increased significantly in females than in males, living with a family than living alone, high economic status than in the low group, obese than in the normal weight group, have a history of stroke group than the no history group, smoking group than the non-smoking group, and drinking group than the non-drinking group. The distribution of metabolic syndrome differed significantly according to the sociodemographic characteristics and health-related variables.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.289-294
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• 2020

Peptic ulcer disease is a gastrointestinal disorder caused by Helicobacter pylori infection and the use of nonsteroid anti-inflammatory drugs. While many studies have been conducted to find the risk factors of peptic ulcers, there are no studies on the suggestion of peptic ulcer prediction models for Koreans. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to implement peptic ulcer prediction model using machine learning based on demographic information, obesity information, blood information, and nutritional information for middle-aged and elderly people. For model building, wrapper-based variable selection method and naive Bayes algorithm were used. The classification accuracy of the female prediction model was the area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC) of 0.712, and males showed an AUC of 0.674, which is lower than that of females. These results can be used for prediction and prevention of peptic ulcers in the middle and elderly people.