• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.191-200
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• 2019

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of participation in leisure activities on the quality of life by comparing gender and household type. Methods: Data were drawn from the 2017 Korean Elderly Survey and the participants were 7,406 people who are 65 years and above. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS (version 18.0) statistical package. Results: The result of this study revealed that participation in leisure activities has a significant effect on the quality of life of In the case of older adults who are men and live with couple, voluntary activities have a significant effect on their quality of life, while for elderly women living alone, arts & cultural activities have a significant effect on their quality of life. Conclusions: Based on these results, we suggested some implications for supporting healthy leisure activities and improving the level of quality of life among aged people.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.221-237
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• 2003

As the population ages, health problems of the elderly, including functional disorders and cognitive impairment, have become some of the most important social issues in Korea. The purpose of this study is to discover the rate of prevalence and factors related to dementia among the elderly in Jeju Province. 2405 elderly in Jeju Province were interviewed, using a questionnaire consisting of sociodemographic characteristics： health behavior, quality of life, and MMSE-K. Prevalence of dementia was 9.4%(11.7% of females, 4.1% of males). Factors related to dementia, analyzed by multiple logistic regression, were age, working status, subjective health status, social support, and subjective economic status. In community health care for the elderly, factors relating to dementia have to be considered. When planning community health care, priority should be given to the elderly who： need care but live alone； lack social support； have a low standard of living； believe they are not in a good state of health； or whose life satisfaction is low.

• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.325-334
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• 2015

Elderly suicide rates tend to be high in Korea. Suicide by the elderly is no longer a personal problem; consequently, further research on risk and regional factors is necessary. Disease mapping in epidemiology estimates spatial patterns for disease risk over a geographical region. In this study, we use a simultaneous conditional autoregressive model for spatial correlations between neighboring areas to estimate standard mortality ratios and mapping. The method is illustrated with cause of death data from 2006 and 2010 to analyze regional patterns of elderly suicide in Korea. By considering spatial correlations, the Bayesian spatial models, mean educational attainment and percentage of the elderly who live alone was the significant regional characteristic for elderly suicide. Gibbs sampling and grid method are used for computation.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.1796-1816
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• 2020

The health and safety of elderly and disabled patients who cannot live alone is an important issue. Timely detection of sudden events is necessary to protect these people, and anomaly detection in smart homes is an efficient approach to extracting such information. In the real world, there is a causal relationship between an occupant's behaviour and the order in which appliances are used in the home. Bayesian networks are appropriate tools for assessing the probability of an effect due to the occurrence of its causes, and vice versa. This paper defines different subsets of random variables on the basis of sensory data from a smart home, and it presents an anomaly detection system based on various models of Bayesian networks and drawing upon these variables. We examine different models to obtain the best network, one that has higher assessment scores and a smaller size. Experimental evaluations of real datasets show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

• Journal of the Korea Knowledge Information Technology Society
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.273-286
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• 2018

Korean government has taken various population policy so far According to demographic results, The aging population is rapidly aging and it is expected to deepen in the future. However, many senior citizens are also exposed to poor economic conditions and inconsistent health care risks Most seniors suffer from mental illness and chronic diseases. seniors in traditional cities feel very alienated as they change from large family to small family. As the number of elderly people living alone grows, social problems increase. At present, the health care for the elderly who live alone is not being taken properly, and they are under a very poor management system, both physically and mentally. Every human being has to be old, and we aim to spend our old age processes physically and mentally healthy. As the basic age of the elderly increases, it is necessary to consider various aspects of the welfare policies and medical policies that are followed. In this study, 100 elderly people over the age of 65 were surveyed for economic situations and physical and mental health conditions, and specially performed study on utility of 'urban senior multi care zone' to prove the necessity of introducing the latest digital devices to resolve these problems more effectively by analyzing serious feelings of alienation, loneliness, and emotional situations. Lastly, We conducted this research to find ways to help the elderly through customized health care.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.1-12
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• 2004

This study was designed to search for the direction to develop housing service which assists the older people to live independently in their community and provides the systematization of community care. The subjects of the research include 533 older people between the age of 60 to 79 residing in Seoul and 84 welfare officials at a dong(in)-office and 67 social workers working at comprehensive social welfare institutions. The results were as follows: Both demanders and deliverers recognized that housing service for older people was necessary for community care, and, in particular, the deliverers had higher degree of necessity as people charged in welfare service. The most needed service was community alarm service which currently is proceeded partially for low-income and living-alone olders. It needed to expand the scope of the people to be served. It appeared that the need for inside safety measures rather than for housing space or structural problems. It requires less effort and cost for those who need simple repair, such as safety grips or slippery protection, and safety checks. Among financial support services, the need for tax benefits appeared the most necessary service for the older people. It suggested that more 'direct' financial support service is needed for the elderly people.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Rural Health Nursing
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.24-32
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• 2007

Purpose: This study was done to provide statistical data for developing client-needs based welfare services in community welfare facilities. Method: The participants were 270 senior citizens, who visited a community welfare center in Gyunggi province, during the month of October 2005. They were asked to answer a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, $X^2$ test and Fisher's exact test were used to analyze the data from 221 of the elders. Results: 1. More than 50% of the respondents were women aged between 60 and 75, who had education levels above high school and who lived in apartments. Among the respondents, 54.3% lived separately from their children. 2. 70.0% of the respondents considered their health status as "good", even though they had more than one disease. Also 41% of the respondents were supported by their children, and 76.8% wanted jobs. 3. The respondents pointed out several programs such as languages, computer, singing class, physical activities (dances, billiards, Tai-chi and table tennis), needed to be included in the welfare center programs. Conclusions: Elders aged 60-75, educated above high school, living in an apartments, live alone or with spouse, and having frequent contact with children, were the most frequent utilizers of the welfare center. They want the welfare center programs in variety, including languages, computer, singing class, and physical activities.

• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.9-14
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• 2016

Recently the number of the elderly who live alone are increasing more and more as the average life span is prolonged. The elderly are probably in danger at home without being helped due to external aggressions or sudden health problems. Accordingly, more and more interests are taken in medical welfare for the healthy life of the seniors. In this paper, we have developed a mobility and vitality signal monitoring system based on ZigBee-PSTN gateway for the elderly. This combination of ZigBee wireless sensor network and PSTN can be easily established even in the poor internet infrastructure as is usually common for the elderly, with the advantage of providing non-constrained monitoring feature. The research result can be extended to the future tele-medicine system.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.133-144
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• 2020

The number of elderly people with dementia is increasing as fast as the proportion of older people due to aging, which creates a social and economic burden. In particular, dementia care costs, including indirect costs such as increased care costs due to lost caregiver hours and caregivers, have grown exponentially over the years. In order to reduce these costs, it is urgent to introduce a management system to care for dementia patients. Therefore, this study proposes a sensor-based abnormal behavior detection system to manage dementia patients who live alone or in an environment where they cannot always take care of dementia patients. Existing studies were merely evaluating behavior or evaluating normal behavior, and there were studies that perceived behavior by processing images, not data from sensors. In this study, we recognized the limitation of real data collection and used both the auto-encoder, the unsupervised learning model, and the LSTM, the supervised learning model. Autoencoder, an unsupervised learning model, trained normal behavioral data to learn patterns for normal behavior, and LSTM further refined classification by learning behaviors that could be perceived by sensors. The test results show that each model has about 96% and 98% accuracy and is designed to pass the LSTM model when the autoencoder outlier has more than 3%. The system is expected to effectively manage the elderly and dementia patients who live alone and reduce the cost of caring.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.107-115
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of forest healing programs with walking, sightseeing, and forest scent among six healing forest treatments using forest environment on the cognitive function, depression, and quality of life of elderly living alone. The subjects of the study were 17 senior citizens living in Samcheok and complaining of severe depression and forgetfulness. They were divided into two groups, and each group participated in the six sessions of the weekly forest healing program. All of them were surveyed of a Korean version of the MMSE-K, BDI (Beck Depression Inventory Korean Version), and SF-36 (Short Form 36 health survey questionnaire) with the questionnaire designed for the one-group pre-post test to examine changes in cognitive function, depression, and quality of life. The results showed that the mental status, depression level, and quality of life of respondents were significantly higher after healing programs. These results suggest that participation in healing program activities using forest environment can improve cognitive function, relieve depression and improve quality of life for senior citizens living alone. Therefore, inducing older adults who live alone and avoid outside activities to participate in the regular forest healing program will contribute to the prevention of dementia due to age and environment.