• Advances in Traditional Medicine
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.137-156
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• 2004

Altruistic virtuous caring, possibly originated from religion and/or spirituality, is indispensable for holistic health through channeling vital energy with diet, exercise and meditation. This is a participant-observed medical anthropological research of a first generation Korean elderly immigrant health professional woman living in a four generational family. She had hypertension and was concerned about possible attack of stroke. Multi-religious, spiritual, and cosmological vital energy based on holistic Nature-oriented health beliefs and practices influenced by psychosocial, cultural and economic background, education, self- discipline and self-cultivation of individual, and group or family may create health. Self-care beliefs based on confidence in self-control of one's life style for oneself and others influence individual and group health practice. The holistic alternative health beliefs and practices were proved to be efficacious and beneficial by her self-evaluation, evaluation of significant others, biomedical professionals, and laboratory tests. That may have potential application for global health.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.135-141
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• 2013

As the country's elderly people who are 65 years or older recently exceeded 10% of the total population with development of medical technology and improvement of living standards, Korea has turned into an aging society. Especially in Gyeonggi-do, as of late December 2012, elderly people who were 65 years or older were 1,135,242 persons, taking up 18.98% of the region's population and registering the largest number of elderly people in the nation's cities or provinces. Due to such a sharp rise in elderly population, support for the elderly is increasing the burden on families and communities. The study aims to take as its subjects elderly people staying at authorized elderly welfare facilities, who are weak in mind and body and have difficulty in daily life with disabilities, or adult day care facilities that take care of elderly people during the day or at night, examine the concept of adult day care facilities and instances in foreign countries, and study the status of the adult day care facilities located in Gyeonggi-do, their services, and safety by figuring out space arrangement based on program implementation. Spacial arrangement in program operation should satisfy fuction and purpose from the manager and user's perspective, and a desirable program operation should provide separate spaces for the elderly with Alzheimer's and those without Alzheimer's. Compared to residential care facilities, adult day care facilities incur less financial burden and, compared to other authorized services, have many right functions that can upgrade the quality of users and satisfy their desires. Major countries like Japan, the UK, and Sweden recognize the right functions of day and night care services and aggressively support and utilize adult day care facilities. For adult day care facilities, quality services should be developed and use and choices should be enhanced as regards services. Development of special programs for the elderly with dementia and stroke, instead of simple protective functions of a program, must be actively promoted, while manpower training is required for program operation, conveniences, and safety. By developing and providing space arrangement models that focus on efficiency, convenience, and safety of program operation, adult day care operation can be revitalized, while quality of elderly care may be enhanced and welfare budget can be saved.

• Journal of Korean Biological Nursing Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.193-202
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• 2016

Purpose: The study was to analyze clinical outcomes and risk factors of for complications associated with the hip fracture surgery in the elderly before and after interdisciplinary treatment. Methods: A retrospective method was used to investigate the general and therapeutic characteristics, frequency of complications and clinical outcomes. The subjects of the study were 553 patients who underwent hip fracture surgery from January, 2009 to December, 2014. Results: The interdisciplinary group was older and less likely to walk independently even before the fracture than a usual care group. The incidence of complications was higher in the interdisciplinary group than the usual care group. The prevalence of complications in both groups was 66.5%. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showsed that the risk factors for complications of hip fracture surgery were as follows: advanced age, stroke, Parkinson disease, time interval from emergency room to operation, pre & post ambulatory status, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) classification quality of postop intensive care unit (ICU) care and foley indwelling. Conclusion: This study has implications in that it recognized the necessity for interdisciplinary treatment and provided the basic base data for nursing intervention of the elderly patients who underwent hip fracture surgery.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.81-86
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• 2008

Delirium is not developed naturally and is not an endogenous disease. However, delirium has occurred in some specific populations, such as the elderly or medically compromised patients. These become limitations on the systematic study of the epidemiology of delirium. Many epidemiologic studies of delirium have been focused on the elderly due to the fact there are relatively few in the general population. In addition, assessment tools with various sensitivity and specificity have been used. Advanced age, male, poorer cognitive and functional status, and alcohol abuse are well known risk factors of delirium. the epidemiological data will be reviewed in the elderly, patients with dementia, hip fractures, patients hospitalized in intensive care units, terminal cancer and patients with stroke.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Integrative Medicine
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.57-64
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• 2019

Purpose : This study was implemented to identify the risk conditions influencing suicidal ideation in a nationally representative sample of elderly South Koreans. Methods : Data from 1,152 men and 1,581 women aged 65 years or older were gathered from the 2013 and 2014 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey VI. All analyses were performed using SPSS. To determine significant correlations between risk condition and suicidal ideation, a t-test was used. Results : There were differences in suicidal ideation according to the following individual factors: age, educational background, marital status, economic activity, recognition of stress, experience of depression, and economic status. There were differences in suicidal ideation according to the following health-related factors: subjective health status, EQ-5D (EuroQoL-5 Dimensions), hours of sleep, and BMI. There were also differences in suicidal ideation according to the following disease-related factors: HTN, COPD, asthma, stroke, depression and osteoarthritis. Conclusion : The findings indicate that broad intervention programs should be distributed to prevent suicidal ideation. It is also recommended that programs be developed in a way that can help manage the variables identified in this study. Furthermore, follow-up studies should be conducted to verify the program.

• Journal of East-West Nursing Research
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.122-130
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• 2010

Purpose: This study was aimed at finding factors influencing cognitive impairment which is one of the typical symptoms among the demented elderly. Methods: The number of subjects was 417 elderly residents aged over 65 yr in a community. A cognitive function and a depression level were measured using the Korean Version of Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE-K) and the Korean Form of Geriatric Depression Scale (KGDS). Alcohol abuse was measured using the CAGE instrument. Chi-square test and Logistic regression analysis were conducted to identify factors affecting cognitive impairment. Results: The prevalence rates of cognitive impairment of the sample was 43.5%. Sex, age, educational level, perceived health and alcohol abuse were strong factors influencing cognitive impairment. However, the effects of smoking, living alone, depression, family history in dementia and stroke were not strong. Conclusion: Risk for cognitive impairment were increased by being female and older than 70 yr, having low education, perceiving health as poor, and drinking alcohol abusively. Therefore, a reinforcement system, continuous research and the development of proper programs should be preformed in order to prevent cognitive impairment.

• 재활복지
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.43-58
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• 2018

Swallowing disorders that can affect nutrient intakes and quality of life are commonly shown among the elderly as well as patients with neurogenic disorder. This study verifies the reliability and validity of the Swallowing Disturbance Questionnaire (SDQ), a subjective swallowing disability assessment tool, modified for Koreans' eating habit and cultural sentiment, against 105 stroke patients, in order to help identify early swallowing problems of the elderly. Reliability of internal consistency in the Korean version of SDQ is .601, test-retest reliability is .97, and concurrent validity is .956. Based on 8 points of cut-off score, 46.8% of sensitivity and 81.6% of specificity. Comparing the results of video fluoroscopic study (VFSS), an objective swallowing disorder test with those of Korean version of SDQ, negative predictive value (NPV) and positive predictive value (PPV) was shown as 81% and 53%. The Korean version of SDQ is expected to be a useful testing tool to discriminate swallowing disorders in stroke patients. It has great clinical significance in that swallowing difficulties shown by subjects can be sorted out to request a diagnostic assessment before clinical evaluation by a rehabilitation therapist or ruling out unnecessary exposure to additional tests by accurately identifying stroke patients without swallowing problems.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Rural Architecture
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.27-36
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• 2018

At present, the elderly population in Korea is 14% of the total population and then We has entered an the society of advanced age. Along with this, elderly people with dementia and palsy are also increasing. The demand for elderly nursing homes for elderly people with severe diseases such as dementia and stroke is also increasing, and the existing buildings are being secured by Conversion of existing buildings. However, it is difficult to evacuate and fire due to the out of date of buildings by Conversion of existing buildings. For example, there is a fire in the Indukukwon, Pohang City and Hyosung Geriatric Hospital, Jangseong in Korea, which have changed the use of existing buildings. Many elderly people died in a night fire. It was because of the sandwich panel walls and PVC flooring material produced toxic gas instantly. In this study, we investigated the nursing home that changing the use and established fire prevention of human injury and countermeasure of evacuation. First, the sandwich panels which leading to deaths due to the toxic gas were installed in most nursing home. We recommend the RC, the masonry wall, and the glass fiber panel instead of the sandwich panels, In addition, the PVC flooring is most used in nursing home, the flooring material is considered such as the building stones, the tile, and the yellow soil closing instead of the PVC flooring. Second, we investigated the installation status of fire fighting equipment. As a result, the automatic-emergency open&shut equipment, the smoke ventilator and the evacuation slide were rarely installed. In order to secure the golden time in case of fire and to prevent the asphyxia caused by the toxic gas, the law should be amended to install the equipment.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.145-150
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• 2015

Objective: Pain is very common in the elderly, so there is a high prevalence of analgesic use among this population. The purpose of this study was to assess patterns of analgesic use and evaluate factors associated with analgesic use in elderly patients. Method: The subjects of this study were patients over 65 years old hospitalized in a teaching hospital located in Chuncheon-si, Korea between January 1, 2014 and March 31, 2014. Data collection regarding analgesic prescriptions and baseline characteristics was conducted using computerized hospital database by medical information team. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors related to analgesic use. Results: A total of 2,394 patients were finally included. Among these patients, 700 (29.2%) took analgesics; 521 (74.4%) out of these 700 patients were received opioid analgesics and 179 (25.6%) were received only non-opioid analgesics. The most frequently prescribed opioid analgesic was pethidine (45.7%), and the most frequently prescribed non-opioid analgesic was acetaminophen (44.1%). Fracture was associated with increased odds of opioid analgesic prescriptions (OR = 2.766, 95% CI = 2.019-3.790, p < 0.001) and any analgesic prescriptions (OR = 2.394, 95% CI = 1.766-3.244, p < 0.001). Stroke or cerebral infarction was associated with decreased odds of opioid analgesic prescriptions (OR = 0.636, 95% CI = 0.471-0.858, p = 0.003). Conclusion: A significant proportion of hospitalized elderly patients use analgesics. Health care professionals should consider factors associated with analgesic use in this population to improve pain management.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.8 no.12
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• pp.119-127
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• 2017

This paper convergent examined caregiver burden, depressive symptoms and health related quality of life of 226 caregivers of stroke patients, who had been hospitalized in 7 general hospitals located in Cheongju and Daejeon Metropolitan city. The quality of life was measured using SF-8, which is a short version of HRQoL. According to Multiple regression Analysis, dependence of a patient were important factors in the physical related quality of life. These results suggest that in order to improve the quality of life related to the physical health of the stroke patient's caregiver, the elderly long-term care insurance system and the caregiver system and the ward of the Ministry of Health and Welfare are expanded ward without a caregiver. There is a need to raise expectations for recovery through education and family support groups.