• Health Policy and Management
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.231-244
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• 2020

Background: As the population is aging, chronic diseases and depression are becoming the main problems in a country's healthcare system. In this study, we aimed to explore the associations between chronic diseases and depression among the elderly in South Korea. Methods: We analyzed 9,975 (men, 4,147; women, 5,828) respondents obtained from the 2014 National Survey of Living Conditions and Welfare Needs of Korean Older Persons. Our dependent variable was either 1 or 0 according to whether a respondent had depression or not, where depression was defined when the Short Form of Geriatric Depression Scale score was 8 or more points. Variables of interest were 24 types of chronic diseases and covariates included various socio-demographic and health behavior characteristics. We performed Rao-Scott chi-square tests and hierarchal logistic regression analyses by gender, reflecting the characteristics of the survey. Results: A significant difference was found in the proportion of having depression between genders (men 18.9% vs. women 23.4%). According to fully adjusted, multivariable analyses, for elderly men, relative to those without any chronic disease, the odds ratio of depression was 1.56 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.10-2.22) in the stroke patients group and 1.82 (95% CI, 1.01-3.25) in the osteoporosis patients group. For elderly women, the odds ratio was 1.96 (95% CI, 1.28-3.00) in the fracture/dislocation and aftereffects patients group and 1.30 (95% CI, 1.03-1.64) in the group of patients with other diseases. Conclusion: Even after being adjusted for diverse characteristics, some chronic diseases were significantly associated with depression in the elderly and the association differed between genders. Therefore, public health and medical interventions are needed to manage such chronic diseases together with curing depression symptoms.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.361-369
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• 2016

Oral health can influence on diverse food intake, and food intake affect oral health related quality of life. The aim of this study was to select key foods to be able to represent oral health related quality of life in Korea. We used the data of 503 Korean older persons to participate in the oral health promotion programme in 2009. The low consumption or low intake foods with criteria in 2012 National Nutrition Statistics were eliminated among 30 foods of food intake ability (FIA) at first. Decision tree model, correlation analysis, factor analysis, and internal reliablity test were used for oral health related quailty of life (OHRQoL) key food selection. We selected 13 foods-hard persimmon, dried peanut, pickled radish, caramel, rib of pork, glutinous rice cake, cabbage kimchi, apple, yellow melon, boiled chicken meat, boiled fish, mandarin, noodles as OHRQoL Key Foods 13. Thirty foods of FIA and OHRQoL Key Foods 13 displayed the same pattern of variation among sociodemographic groups. In a regression model, both of 30 foods of FIA and OHRQoL Key Foods 13 influenced on oral health impact profile-14. The findings suggest that OHRQoL Key Foods 13 have good reliability and validity and be able to use in oral health survey.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.205-217
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• 2004

This study was carried out to provide information on the effect of nutrition education program for diabetic patients at the Guri City's Public Health Center. Subjects of this study were 31 persons(male 7, female 24) who attended all courses of "2002 Diabetes Education Class". They were indicated as the 'education group'(EG). Eating and living habits of EG were investigated before the education. EG's weight and blood glucose (post prandial 2 hours, PP2) were examined as well. EG's PP2 reduction was compared with a 'control group'(CG) who didn't join any course in that class. All of the subjects were non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus(NIDDM) patients. EG's average age was 62.4$\pm$8.8. Before taking the course, EG's PP2 was 251.5$\pm$29.6mg/dl, and body mass index(BMI) was 26.3$\pm$2.3 on average. Most of them were stressed out from their daily lives and usually had no exercise. Most people of EG ate meals rapidly and liked sweet and fatty foods. After the course of training, EG's weight and BMI before the training were not decreased significantly. However, all of the EG's PP2s, which were measured 4 times(before the meal at the special lunch session, after 2 hours at this meal, after 2 weeks and 4 weeks dietary assembly), were decreased in comparison with the PP2 which was checked prior to joining the training. EG's average PP2 was more reduced than CG's one. In addition, all groups' PP2s were decreased for 8 weeks. After all, this nutritional education at the public health center was effective in glycemic control for diabetes mellitus patients. Especially, when the dietary assembly as practical training was included in the educational process, the patient's dietary intake and PP2 was improved more effectively. Therefore, this study suggests that nutrition work at public health centers is necessary for the Health Promotion Policy.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.19-26
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• 2018

In recent years, the substantial increase in the population's average age leads to an exceeded number of older persons comparing with the number of any other age group. As a result, both industry and academia are focused on the development of several solutions aimed to guarantee a healthy and safe lifestyle to the elderly. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) approach is the way to guarantee better life conditions for the aged and for monitoring their health conditions by the development of innovative technologies and services. AAL technologies can also provide more safety for the elderly, offering emergency response mechanisms, fall detection solutions, and video surveillance systems. Unfortunately, due to the sensitive nature of AAL data, AAL systems should satisfy security requirements such as integrity, confidentiality, availability, anonymity, and others. In this paper, we propose an adaptive authentication protocol for the AAL systems. The proposed authentication protocol not only supports several important security requirements needed by the AAL systems, but can also withstand various types of attacks. In addition, the security analysis results show that the proposed authentication protocol is more efficient and secure than the existing authentication protocols.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.191-200
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• 1997

Objectives : Periodic limb movements during sleep (PLMS) may cause arousals that may lead to non-restorative sleep. PLMS is characterized by long sleep latency, sleep fragmentation, frequent stage shifts, and rarity of stages 3/4 NREM sleep on polysomnography. However, controversies have existed and it still remains to be elaborated whether PLMS actually causes insomnia, since normal persons happen to have PLMS. Clinically, it would be crucial to know factors which might disturb sleep in PLMS. We became interested in Coleman's theory(1980) that invariant periodic movements disturb patients' sleep less. Though, Coleman's study seems to have been confounded by including PLMS patients with various co-morbid sleep disorders. Therefore, we attempted to study in patients only with PLMS the effects of movement patterns on sleep architecture. Methods : In 27 patients diagnosed as having PLMS only with clinical interview and nocturnal polysomnography, we studied the relationship between the movement patterns such as mean duration and variability of periodic limb movement's interval and the sleep architecture variables. Results : The shorter and the more regular the limb movement intervals were, the fewer arousals followed. The movement intervals of the older patients were shorter and more regular than the younger patients. The probability of the accompanying arousal with each limb movement increased as the duration and variance of the movement intervals increased. It decreased as the age and the frequency of limb movements increased. Among these factors the most significant one was the mean duration of the movement intervals. In other words, the shorter the movement intervals were, the less disturbed sleep was. Conclusion : PLMS frequency increases with aging but the probability of the accompanying arousal with each movement decreases with aging. Sleep-disturbing effects of PLMS depends more on the duration and variability of movement intervals than the PLMS frequency.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.251-263
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• 2011

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the factors associated with fear of falling among the elderly dwelling in rural communities. Methods: From February 1, 2010 to March 31, 2010, a questionnaire-based survey was sent to 2,628 persons 65 years or older dwelling in 1 Myeon and 1 Eup of Gyeongsangnam-do. Among these participants, 735 (27.9%) had fallen more than once in 2009. For data analysis, descriptive statistics and hierarchical multiple regression were performed using SPSS version 12.0. Results: Factors influencing the fear of falling in the elderly according to falls experienced were number of outpatient visits, number of falls, gender, admission, purchasing of health function foods, and activities of daily living. Overall, the study showed significant differences in the score of fear of falling according to gender, age, education, marital status, living arrangement, main means of mobilization, drinking, income, number of falls, admission, number of outpatient visits, experience with outpatient oriental medicine, purchasing of health function foods, medical assistance devices, season, fall location, fall cause, shoe type, injury type, limitation of activity, and activities of daily living. Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that programs should be developed specifically for elderly people who have experienced more than one fall because of increased fear due to multiple falls.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.68 no.3
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• pp.73-103
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• 2016

In this study, it investigates the life of normal adolescents who have parents with intellectual disability and their difficulties which suggested social welfare meanings of this study. In order to conduct wide and in-depth analysis on cases by utilizing the characteristics of qualitative case studies, it describes and analyzes the intellectual disability parents' normal children in detail from the viewpoint of an insider through in-depth interviews, various sources and diverse data collecting methods. As for the subject of this study, both parents should be persons with intellectual disability and their child shall be non-disabled and at least a high school student or older. Through the intentional sampling, five late adolescents who were in high school, all males participated in the study. The data collection process had been conducted from January 2014 to May, which is commonly utilized for qualitative case studies, and comparative analysis between cases were practiced for analysis. For credibility of the research results, it obtained severity at each stage by meeting the standard. The analysis results were largely divided into "growth story of non-disabled adolescents" and "life of non-disabled adolescents". Nine upper categories analyzed the common features in each case. The nine categories were "no one tells me to study", "advance while learning the sense of academic achievement", "hide into my own space", "having to grown up early", "different parents but same love", "relatives raised me", "have a friend who accepts me as I am", "being pressed by poverty", and "standing on a knife edge of being hurt and taking heart". Based on the in-depth research on normal teens that have intellectually disabled parents, theoretically speaking, this study expanded the prospect of study on intellectually disabled to their normal, intellectual teenage children. As for practical significance, understanding their parents' intellectual disability, parenting technique training, case management from the community level is suggested. Rregular real condition research of the families, allowance system for economic support et al. is suggested in policy aspect.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.1-22
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• 2007

This study explores the images of the elderly held by non-elderly. Unlike previous studies on the topic, it considers various dimensions of the images including health, personality, intelligence, and economic ability. The study also attempts to examine factors affecting the images by age groups of non-elderly as well as the dimensions above. The data come from a nationwide survey on the Korean Elderly conducted by Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs in 2004. Analysis of the samples aged 20-64 reveals that the overall image of the elderly are negative across four dimensions. Nonetheless, differences by dimensions are also observed. Young people in their 20s are more likely than other age groups to have negative views on elderly's health. In the meanwhile, the middle aged are more likely to have negative views on elderly's economic ability. Multivariate analysis based on legit regression model shows that the images of the elderly are affected by age, place of residence, co-residence with older persons, attitude toward life in old age. The findings from this study contain important implications for the improvement of the elderly's images in rapidly aging society.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.30 no.2 s.57
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• pp.293-307
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• 1997

In Korea, sudden deaths of middle-aged and older male workers who are the responsible persons at home as well as workplace, have aroused social concern. Besides, U. N. has reported recently that mortality of Korea male in 40-50's was one of the highest among newly developed countries in 1992. Not much is, however, known about the nature of the work contributing to the mortality of different groups of workers. Therefore, this study was done to examine mortality of public servants, comprising about 5% of all the employed in Korea, according to their job titles and grades. The datas of 1753 official deaths, comprised 323 (only disease-oriented deaths) applicants of survivors' compensation, were used to examine age-adjusted Standardized Mortality Ratios(SMRs) according to their job titles, grades, tenures and cause of deaths. Controlling age and sex difference was conducted using 26,950,481 general population, 95,340 general deaths and 864,560 working public servants. All the groups were aged 20-64, who were being observed January - December in 1993, at the same time. Results and discussions are as follows. 1. SMRs standardized by general population was significantly low (SMR 44.9 CI 42.8-52.7) for all job titlses. Of public servants, 90.0% was graduated from high school, although 17.5% in general population. The distinction of social status such a education may produce a strong healthy worker effect. Besides, SMRs for different tenure groups showed a steady increase as tenure increases. This suggests that the magnitude of healthy-worker effect may be greater with increasing tenures. 2. SMRs standardized by own public servants was significantly elevated for work-men(SMR 121.0, CI 110.2-132.6) in solitue. When SMRs for different grade, of work-men was examined, 9th(SMR 124.2, CI 104.4-146.7) and 10th(SMR 137.9 CI 120.8-156.8)grade, lower grade in workmen, showed significantly elevated SMRs. Of workmen, 57.0% were graduated from high school and 50.1% in 9th grade, as well. These mean that low economic states made up social class, education may increase mortality rate. 3. Of SMRs according to all causes of death, only policemen on 'cause of death related hypertensive disease'(SMR 282.5, CI 121.6-556.7) was significantly high except for' cause of death related other signs, symptoms and ill-defined conditions'. 4. When SMRs on cause of death related hypertensive disease for different grade of policemen was examined, senior policemen(SMR 241.9), in charge of the front service, showed elevated SMR, in spite of statistical no significance. Especially, the working hour of senior policemen is quite long and also the work schedule is even more irregular for policemen. The results of this study showed that mortality for different jobs differed, and it differed also for different grades in the same job. This difference in mortality may reflect the difference in the nature of job contents, and further studies are warranted to elucidate which job characteristics are responsible.

• Journal of Home Health Care Nursing
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.1-15
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• 2005

Purpose: This study was conducted to assess the fall risk factors. Method: The subjects were 87 persons who were older than 65 years living at 28 nursing home in Seoul and Gyunggi province. Subjects were interviewed using RAFS II for intrinsic factor and the environmental factor were assessed using a structured questionnaire from Oct. to Dec. in 2004. The data were analyzed by SPSS(ver. 12.0) programs, using descriptive statistics, $x^2$-test, and t-test. Result: The 37.9% of the subjects experienced the fall, and its average number is $1.94\pm1.75$. The Women's experience of the fall was higher than that of the men, but it was no significant difference with gender. There was no significant difference with the age and duration of living. The mean of the intrinsic risk factor was 13.38 in total score 39 points marks on the RAFS II scales. The intrinsic risk factor score of the fallen group 15.71 was significantly higher than the non-fallen group 12.10. The variables of recent fall experience(t=4.72, p=0.000) and urinary dysfunction(t=2.64, p=0.010) was significantly higher than the non-fallen group. The highest variable of the intrinsic factor was the age and the variables of drug intake, balance, chronic disease, recent fall experience, urinary dysfunction were followed in order. The mean of the environmental risk factor was 0.24 points. No significant differences were shown in environmental risk factor between the fallen and the non-fallen groups. To the fallen group, the place of entrance was the highest risky environmental factor. To see in area dimension, the floor surfaces was the highest risky environmental factor and equipment and illumination factor was the following risky elements in order. In the total score of environmental risk factors based on the ares, the fallen group was 0.26 and the non-fallen group was 0.24, but there were no significant differences between the groups. Conclusion: This results suggested that visual protection strategy, set up the safety device in the place of entrance and inner stairway, bathroom and nonskid mat in the nursing home would be contribute to the prevention of the fall for the elderly.