• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.1100-1118
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• 2020

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of acupuncture as a treatment for allergic rhinitis (AR). We used a meta-analysis and systematic review to analyze the results of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that applied acupuncture to AR patients. Methods: The key question assessed the effects of acupuncture on patients with AR, and we included only RCTs. We searched the KoreaMed, NDSL, KMBASE, Koreantk, OASIS, PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane databases, with no language restriction. We assessed risk of bias with the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool. The random effects model was used to adjust for the heterogeneity of the included studies, and the effect sizes between two groups were reported as mean differences (MD) and risk ratios (RR). Results: Twelve RCTs were analyzed, with a total of 1788 participants; 824 participants were in the treatment group (i.e., acupuncture) and 964 were in the control group (sham acupuncture, western medicine, or waitlist). The meta-analysis results of 7 RCTs comparing the therapeutic efficacy of acupuncture with that of sham acupuncture showed a statistically significant difference (p<0.05) in the Rhinoconjunctivitis Quality of Life Questionnaire (RQLQ) and the Change of Total Nasal Symptom Score (TNSS). The meta-analysis of 4 RCTs comparing the therapeutic efficacy of acupuncture with western medicine showed statistically significant differences (p<0.05) in the RQLQ but not in the changes in effective rate (p>0.05). Conclusions: Acupuncture can be an effective treatment for AR, but more studies are required to enhance the level of evidence and to confirm safety.

• Journal of Korean Medicine for Obesity Research
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.178-192
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• 2020

Objectives: The present study aimed to compare the impacts of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and behavioral treatment (BT) on weight loss and psychological outcomes among patients with three different subtypes of obesity: simple obesity, obesity with binge eating disorder, and obesity with depression. Methods: Embase, PubMed, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Research Information Sharing Service, and Korean Studies Information Service System were systematically searched for randomized controlled trials conducted on or before May 2020, that used CBT to treat obesity. Methodological quality was assessed using Cochrane's risk of bias tool 2 and publication bias was evaluated through the funnel plot using the trim and fill method, Egger's test, and Begg and Mazumdar rank correlation test. A meta-analysis was conducted using a random-effects model and the standardized mean difference with 95% confidence interval (CI) was used to determine effect size. Results: Twenty-one randomized controlled trials with a total of 22 intervention arms and 2,590 patients were included. Our study results revealed that the effects of CBT, compared with BT, on weight loss distinctly differed across all patient subgroups. In the simple obesity group, CBT was more effective than BT (Hedges' g=0.138, CI=0.012~0.264); however, in the obesity with binge eating disorder group, BT was more effective than CBT (Hedges' g=-0.228, CI=-0.418~-0.038); in the obesity with depression group, the effect of CBT was not statistically different from that of BT (Hedges' g=0.276, CI=-0.307~0.859). Further studies with larger sample sizes are required to confirm the outcomes observed in this study. Conclusions: Our results indicated that the effects of CBT on obesity treatment vary based on patient subtype. Therefore, our findings suggest that CBT or BT should be selectively recommended as a treatment strategy for different obesity subtypes.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.225-232
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to identify the psychological characteristics of the elderly and to investigate the variables that affect the life satisfaction of the elderly. To achieve this purpose, psychological characteristics such as self-esteem, alienation, loss, and depression were selected. A survey was conducted on the elderly living in Gwangju Metropolitan City. A total of 218 copies were collected and 203 copies were analyzed, excluding poor responses. To draw the results of the research, quantitative analysis was conducted through questionnaires, and SPSSWIN 21.0 statistical program was used as an analysis tool. The analysis methods were frequency and ratio analysis, technical statistical analysis, bivariate correlation analysis, and linear regression analysis. The results of the analysis are as follows: First, the relationship between the psychological characteristics of the elderly showed significant correlations among the self-esteem, alienation, loss, depression, and life satisfaction of the elderly. Second, for the elderly, alienation and depression had a negative effect on life satisfaction, and self-esteem had a positive effect on life satisfaction. However, loss did not have a significant effect on life satisfaction. In conclusion, it suggests that it is necessary to develop and operate policies and programs to improve self-esteem and reduce alienation and depression in order to improve the quality of life of the elderly.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2021

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review to investigate the socio-economic benefits of the poison control center (PCC) and to assess whether telephone counseling at the poison control center affects the frequency of emergency room visits, hospitalization, and length of stay of patients with acute poisoning. Methods: The authors conducted a medical literature search of the PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library databases. Two reviewers evaluated the abstracts for eligibility, extracted the data, and assessed the study quality using a standardized tool. Key results such as the cost-benefit ratio, hospital stay days, unnecessary emergency room visits or hospitalizations, and reduced hospital charges were extracted from the studies. When meta-analysis was possible, it was performed using RevMan software (RevMan version 5.4). Results: Among 299 non-duplicated studies, 19 were relevant to the study questions. The cost-benefit ratios of PCC showed a wide range from 0.76 to 36 (average 6.8) according to the level of the medical expense of each country and whether the study included intentional poisoning. PCC reduced unnecessary visits to healthcare facilities. PCC consultation shortened the length of hospital stay by 1.82 (95% CI, 1.07-2.57) days. Conclusion: The systematic review and meta-analysis support the hypothesis that the PCC operation is cost-beneficial. However, when implementing the PCC concept in Korea in the future, it is necessary to prepare an institutional framework to ensure a costeffective model.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.44-53
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• 2021

Urban stormwater runoff contains heavy metals that accumulate in on-site treatment systems, thus resulting to facility deterioration and maintenance problems. In order to resolve these problems, low impact development (LID) technologies that promote natural materials circulation are widely used. LID facilities are capable of treating heavy metals in the runoff by means of plant uptake; however, the uptake or phytoremediation capabilities of plants have not been studied extensively, making it difficult to select the most suitable plant species for a certain LID design. This study investigated the vegetative components of an LID facility, roadside plants, and plants in landscape areas with different heavy metal exposure and frequency to determine the uptake capabilities of different plant species. The plants harvested inside the LID facilities and roadsides with high vehicular traffic exhibited greater heavy metal concentrations in their tissues as compared with the plants in landscape areas. Generally, the accumulation of heavy metals in the plant tissues were found to be influenced by the environmental characteristics (i.e. influent water quality, air pollution level, etc.). Dianthus, Metasequoia, Rhododendron lateritium, and Mugwort were found to be effective in removing Zn in the urban stormwater runoff. Additionally, Dianthus, Metasequoia, Mugwort, and Ginkgo Biloba exhibited excellent removal of Cu. Cherry Tree, Metasequoia, and mugwort efficiently removed Pb, whereas Dianthus was also found to be effective in treating As, Cr, and Cd in stormwater. Overall, different plant species showed varying heavy metal uptake capabilities. The results of this study can be used as an effective tool in selecting suitable plant species for removing heavy metals in the runoff from different land use types.

• Journal of Korean Medicine for Obesity Research
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.22-31
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• 2021

Objectives: We conducted a retrospective chart review to investigate the effects of Korean Medicine (KM) treatment on weight loss in patients with morbid obesity (body mass index [BMI]≥30 kg/m²) and to compare the effects of KM counseling and non-counseling on weight loss. Methods: We performed a retrospective chart review of patients with morbid obesity who received KM treatment for at least 1 month. We evaluated the effects of KM treatment on body weight, BMI, body fat, fat mass, EuroQol-5D, and the Korean version of the obesity-related quality of life scale (KOQOL). We also assessed the liver and kidney functions, and adverse events. We performed a comparative analysis between the counseling and non-counseling groups. Results: A total of 37 patients who underwent 4 weeks of KM treatment involving Wolbi-tang, electroacupuncture, and KM counseling were included in this study. Twenty-one patients were assigned to the counseling group and sixteen patients to the non-counseling group. There was a significant decrease in weight, BMI, fat mass, and KOQOL (P<0.05) with improvements in total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein, and triglycerides. The counseling group had a greater reduction in body weight, BMI, body fat, and fat mass compared to the non-counseling group, although it was not significant. In the BMI below 35 (n=25), the reduction ratio of body weight, body fat mass, and body fat was higher in the counseling group than in the non-counseling group; additionally, body fat decreased significantly in counseling group (P<0.05). No severe adverse effects were observed. Conclusion: KM treatment could be effective for weight loss, especially in patients with morbid obesity, KM counseling could also be a good tool for weight loss, typically in patients with BMI<35 kg/m².

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Sensory Integration
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.39-53
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• 2021

Objective : The purpose of this study was to systematically review dysphagia rehabilitation treatment for children with feeding disorders. Methods : The articles evaluated in this study were collected from the PubMed, Medline Complete, and CINAHL databases and subsequently reviewed using the PRISMA flow chart and PICOS approach. A total of 13 papers were analyzed for study quality, disease groups, evaluation tools, interventions, and post-intervention effects. Results : Of the reviewed papers, six (46.15%) related to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and seven (53.85%) to cerebral palsy (CP) with age ranges of between 2 and 8 years for the ASD studies and between 12 months and 18 years for CP. In evaluating the types of feeding disorder involved, the ASD group exhibited predominantly behavioral conditions while the CP subjects had a larger number of functional oral and swallowing issues. In terms of interventions, behavior modifications were used most frequently with ASD while oral-sensory motor, texture modifications, and electrical stimulation were applied at the same frequency with children with CP. All interventions were found to be effective. Conclusion : In this study, research into children with feeding disorders was reviewed according to condition, evaluation tool, and method of intervention. It is expected that this review can be used as basic data for developing a protocol that will allow clinicians to efficiently apply condition-specific interventions for eating disorders without resorting to trial and error.

• Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.233-254
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• 2022

Link reduction algorithms such as pathfinder network are the widely used methods to overcome problems with the visualization of weighted networks for knowledge domain analysis. This study proposed NetRSQ, an indicator to measure the goodness of fit of a link reduction algorithm for the network visualization. NetRSQ is developed to calculate the fitness of a network based on the rank correlation between the path length and the degree of association between entities. The validity of NetRSQ was investigated with data from previous research which qualitatively evaluated several network generation algorithms. As the primary test result, the higher degree of NetRSQ appeared in the network with better intellectual structures in the quality evaluation of networks built by various methods. The performance of 4 link reduction algorithms was tested in 40 datasets from various domains and compared with NetRSQ. The test shows that there is no specific link reduction algorithm that performs better over others in all cases. Therefore, the NetRSQ can be a useful tool as a basis of reliability to select the most fitting algorithm for the network visualization of intellectual structures.

• Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.65-81
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• 2022

Objectives This study aimed to assess the effects of oral administration of deer antler extracts on an osteoporosis-induced animal model. We analyzed the results of using deer antler single extracts on animal models with osteoporosis through a systematic review and meta-analysis. Methods We included osteoporosis studies in animal experiments that administrated deer antler extracts orally. We searched the following 13 databases without a language restriction: PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang, Korean Medical Database (KMbase), National Digital Science Library (NDSL), Korean Traditional Knowledge (Koreantk), Oriental Medicine Advanced Searching Integrated System (OASIS), Research Information Sharing Service (RISS), Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI), and Koreanstudies Information Service System (KISS). We used Systematic Review Centre for Laboratory Animal Experimentation's risk of bias tool for assessing the methodological quality of the included studies. Results A total of 299 potentially relevant studies were searched and 11 were included for a systematic review. Nine studies used a single deer antler extract. A study compared the effects of single extracts of deer antler and antler glue, while another study compared the effects of three single extracts of deer antler, old antler, and antler glue. For evaluating the intervention effect, bone mineral density (BMD) was measured as the primary outcome, while the histomorphometric indicators of the bone and serum alkaline phosphatase and osteocalcin levels were used as the secondary outcome variables. On conducting a meta-analysis of studies on single deer antler extract, BMD was observed to be significantly increased compared to that in control group (standardized mean difference [SMD]=2.11; 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.58~2.65; Z=7.75; p<0.00001; I²=56%). As a result of meta-analysis, according to the concentration of deer antler, the group with high concentration showed statistically significantly higher BMD than the group with low concentration (SMD=1.28; 95% CI=0.74~1.82; Z=4.63; p<0.00001; I²=9%). Conclusions The research shows that the deer antler extracts have significant anti-osteoporotic effects on the osteoporosis-induced animal model. However the studies included in this research had a high methodological risk of bias. This indicates the requirement of considerable attention in the interpretation of the study results.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.507-517
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• 2022

The PhotoAcoustic Microscopy (PAM) has been proved to be a useful tool for biological and medical applications due to its high spatial and contrast resolution. PAM is based on transmission of laser pulses and reception of PA signals. Since the strength of PA signals is generally low, not only are high-performance optical and acoustic modules required, but high-performance electronics for imaging are also particularly needed for high-quality PAM imaging. Most PAM systems are implemented with a combination of several pieces of equipment commercially available to receive, amplify, enhance, and digitize PA signals. To this end, PAM systems are inevitably bulky and not optimal because general purpose equipment is used. This paper reports a PA signal receiving system recently developed to attain the capability of improved Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) and Contrast to Noise Ratio (CNR) of PAM images; the main module of this system is a low noise, wideband signal receiver that consists of two low-noise amplifiers, two variable gain amplifiers, analog filters, an Analog to Digital Converter (ADC), and control logic. From phantom imaging experiments, it was found that the developed system can improve SNR by 6.7 dB and CNR by 3 dB, compared to a combination of several pieces of commercially available equipment.