• The Korean Journal of Rehabilitation Nursing
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.73-82
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• 2012

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the influencing factors on mental health related quality of life (MHRQoL) in adults across the lifespan. Methods: A total of 688 Korean adults aged 19 years and older were selected. Data were collected by personal interviews or self report using structured questionnaires. For data analysis, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficients and Stepwise multiple regression were used. Results: Mental health related quality of life (MHRQoL) differed significantly according to life cycle, especially showing a lower score in the elderly than others. In addition, elderly adulthood reported the highest stress and depression. The most significant predictors of MHRQoL in young and middle aged people were stress, depression, and subjective health status. Predictors of MHQoL in the elderly were stress and religion. Conclusion: The results indicate that MHRQoL of adult is associated with stress and depression. When the programs are developed to enhance mental health in elderly adulthood, religion should be considered as well as stress.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.51-60
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• 2024

Previous research reported a decline in facial emotion recognition with aging, but whether this was due to a genuine decline in recognition ability or own-age face recognition bias remains unclear, as most studies used stimuli from younger models. Thus, this study recruited older adults as participants and utilized stimuli identical to Kim (2021) study for direct comparison. Participants rated the similarity of pairs of facial expressions representing six emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, neutrality, and sadness) from three age groups (young, middle-aged, and old). Multidimensional scaling analysis revealed that, regardless of age, all three core dimensions were confirmed, indicating similar representation of facial emotions across age groups. The older participants assigned lower arousal and dominance to younger faces expressing disgust and higher arousal and dominance to younger faces expressing fear, indicating that they rated younger faces' disgust expressions less strongly and overestimated fear expressions. These findings suggest that the own-age face recognition bias in facial expression perception may be emotion-specific rather than universally applicable to all emotions.

• Therapeutic Science for Rehabilitation
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.69-84
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• 2024

Objective : This study aimed to categorize the lifestyles of older adults into two types - healthy and unhealthy, and use machine learning to identify the personal values that influence these lifestyles. Methods : This cross-sectional study targeting middle-aged and older adults (55 years and above) living in local communities in South Korea. Data were collected from 300 participants through online surveys. Lifestyle types were dichotomized by the Yonsei Lifestyle Profile (YLP)-Active, Balanced, Connected, and Diverse (ABCD) responses using latent profile analysis. Personal value information was collected using YLP-Values (YLP-V) and analyzed using machine learning to identify the relative importance of personal values on lifestyle types. Results : The lifestyle of older adults was categorized into healthy (48.87%) and unhealthy (51.13%). These two types showed the most significant difference in social relationship characteristics. Among the machine learning models used in this study, the support vector machine showed the highest classification performance, achieving 96% accuracy and 95% area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. The model indicated that individuals who prioritized a healthy diet, sought health information, and engaged in hobbies or cultural activities were more likely to have a healthy lifestyle. Conclusion : This study suggests the need to encourage the expansion of social networks among older adults. Furthermore, it highlights the necessity to comprehensively intervene in individuals' perceptions and values that primarily influence lifestyle adherence.

• 한국노년학
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.363-388
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• 2019

This study examined the influence of subjective age on subjective well-being and depression, and the mediating effect of meaning in life. A survey of 394 adults aged 40 or older completed a questionnaire concerning subjective age perception, meaning in life, subjective well-being, and depression. The main results are summarized as follows. First, the analysis of subjective age according to the sociodemographic variables showed that middle-aged and elderly people, who were highly educated and had good perceived health status, felt themselves younger than their counterparts did. Second, a young subjective age had a positive effect on meaning in life and subjective well-being while negatively influencing depression. Third, meaning in life significantly mediated the relationship among subjective age, subjective well-being, and depression. In other words, the younger the middle- and old-aged adults perceived themselves, the more meaning they found in life, which led to higher subjective well-being and lower depression. These findings suggest that, as people get older, perceiving themselves as younger than their chronological age can protect their mental health, and meaning in life plays an important role in the process.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.179-190
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• 2011

This study examined the association between marital status and mental health(depression, and suicidal ideation) of Korean adults by age and sex, using 2005 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data. Differences of marital status in depression and suicidal ideation were assessed by age and sex-specific prevalence according to each stage of the life course. Our results indicated that adults who divorced, separated, and widowed had significantly higher risk of poor mental health than married adults. Men with no spouse at the stage of middle and older aged are reported higher in depressive symptom than married men. For the suicidal ideation, men with no spouse had higher risk of suicidal ideation through all stage of life course. Women were more likely to report depressive symptom and suicidal ideation than men through all stage of life course. But we could not found the mental health advantage of marriage among Korean women through all stage of life course. Based on findings, the study clearly indicate that the implication of marriage on mental health could be different for adults of different age group and sex.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.13-25
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• 2024

The rate of single-person households has been increasing all over the world, and there has been a particularly rapid increase in them in Korea. Single-person households show unique and various characteristics related to the reasons for becoming a single-person household, gender, life cycle, and so on. Thus, research needs to focus on the specific groups of single-person households in order to provide tailored policies and programs. This study segmented single-person households in three groups based on life cycle: young, middle-aged, and older adults. Differences in the level of healthy lifestyle, as well as factors affecting that, were investigated according to the groups. The data were collected in 2022, with 237 respondents from single-person households in Kimpo. Descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, and multiple regression analysis were conducted. The overall level of healthy lifestyle was found to be significantly higher for young adults compared to older adults. Results from multiple regression show that significant factors related to the healthy lifestyle of single-person households were gender, educational attainment, whether becoming a single-person household was voluntary, and whether the respondents had experienced discrimination as a single-person household. Significant factors differed by the sub-categories of the healthy lifestyle scale. This study has implications related to discovering differences in the level of healthy lifestyles of single-person households through examining the factors affecting it according to life cycle.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Integrative Medicine
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.37-45
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• 2021

Purpose : This study aimed to present normative data and cut-off points for older Korean adults completing the Montreal Cognitive Assessment - Korean (MoCA-K), which is used as a screening test for mild cognitive impairment in Korea. Methods : A total of 195 healthy adults ≥60 years were recruited. All participants completed the MoCA-K and the Korean - Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE-K) to assess their cognitive function. Participants were divided into six groups based on their age: 60-64 years, 65~69 years, 70~74 years, 75~79 years, 80~84 years, and 85~89 years. Results : The results revealed that MoCA-K score decreased significantly with age (mean score ± standard deviation [SD]; 27.63±2.80 in subjects aged 60~64 years; 27.00±2.39 in subjects aged 65~69 years; 24.94±2.96 in subjects aged 70~74 years; 24.74±3.37 in subjects aged 75~79 years; 22.59±4.72 in subjects aged 80~84 years; and 18.83±5.38 in subjects aged 85~89 years; p<.001). Additionally, MoCA-K score also increased significantly with educational level (mean score±standard deviation [SD]; 19.95±4.78 in no formal education group; 24.95±2.22 in elementary school graduated group; 26.35±2.72 in middle school graduated group; 28.32±1.36 in high school graduated group; and 28.50±1.51 in more than college graduated group; p<.001). The optimal cut-off points were 24/25 for 60~69 years old group, 21/22 for 70~79 years old group, 17/18 for 80~84 years old group, and 13/14 for 85~89 years old group. The optimal cut-off points were 15/16 for individuals who were illiterate, 22/23 for individuals with 6 years of education, 22/24 for individuals with 9 years of education, and 26/27 for individuals with 12 or more years of education. Conclusions : This study presents normative data and cut-off points for the MoCA-K in older Korean adults. This data will facilitate more accurate detection and follow-up of the risk of mild cognitive impairment in this population, taking into consideration age and education. Future studies are required that should focus on the cut-off score on the level of education according to age.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.354-361
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• 2021

This study explored whether the transition to living with a chronic disease changes the level of depression symptoms among middle-aged and older adults in South Korea. We hypothesize that the transition to living with chronic disease leads to a higher level of depressive symptoms. A nationally representative sample (N = 6,284) of adults 45 years and older from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing (KLoSA) was analyzed. Multi-regression modeling was used to examine the association between the diagnosis of chronic disease and the level of depressive symptoms in patients. The findings highlight the need for policy makers, clinicians, as well as patients and their caregivers to become more aware of mental health risks in patients diagnosed with chronic diseases, particularly first-time patients. This study contributes to encouraging greater psychosocial support, including monitoring the level of depressive symptoms of patients who develop chronic conditions and providing appropriate treatments for those at the highest risk.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.19-27
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to investigate the incidence rate, surgery tendency, and risk factors of cataracts among the elderly in Korea. The subjects were 40-95 years old men and women using the National Health Services' surgical statistics. Among the 33 major surgeries, which increased by 1.1% per year for the last 20years (1.6 million), the most operated surgery in 2020 was cataract surgery (454,000), the number of which was 858.8 per 100,000 people. Among the surgical patients, cataract patients (7.9% increased) was the third largest among the top (2016-2020) constantly with annually 2.2% increasing for 20 years (19.95 million). The medical expenses of major surgeries (excluding non-benefit) increased by an average rate of 9.3% per year over the 20 years (7,204 billion won) out of a total medical expenses of 7.2 trillion won, and the cataract surgery (813.2 billion won) was the second largest among the medical expenses in 2020 (top 3). This study showed that there was a high correlation between cataract and smoking, low income, and low-educated, whereas being no concentration of cataract patient in tertiary hospitals.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.624-633
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• 2012

This study was executed to provide the basic data that can be helpful for a program aiming at the enhancement of life quality or establishment of policy related to public health by analyzing the importance of health state among the middle-aged adults when it came to the decision of life quality. For 160 adults who were older than 40 years old, a survey was conducted and the results were derived by using t-test, one way ANOVA, and multiple regression analysis. Followings are the outcome of the study. According to such results, it was known that the level of general life quality and oral health related life quality were shown to be different depending on symptoms of depression and xerostomia. Therefore, it suggests that prevention and early intervention of depression and xerostomia will make a great contribution to improve the life quality among the middle-aged adults.