• 한국노년학
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.549-567
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• 2019

The present study examined whether the relation between relative handgrip strength and cognitive function varied by paid employment status and participation of social activities among Korean older adults. A total of 3,376 Korean adults aged 65 or older were drawn from the 2016 Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing (KLoSA). Weighted hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to examine moderating effects of paid employment status and social activities on the relation between relative handgrip strength and cognitive function. After adjusting for covariates, results show that relative handgrip strength has a positive association with cognitive function. Both paid employment status and social activities have positive associations with cognitive function and moderate the relationship between relative handgrip strength and cognitive function. These significant moderating effects show that participating in paid employment and social activities buffer against the effect of lower handgrip strength on cognitive function. Findings from the present study highlight the significant role of active aging in older adults'cognitive function. Implications are discussed in a cultural context.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.33-56
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of grandparenting on the grandparent's level of depression. In addition, it is to test the mediating effect of social support and the moderating effect of household type on the relationships between variables. The 555 grandparent sample in this study was from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging(KLoSA). The findings indicated that grandparenting(grandparenting time per day and total weeks of grandparenting per year) was significantly related to the grandparent's level of depression. In addition, the grandparent's age was also associated with grandparenting, grandparent's depression, and social support. Grandparent's health condition and marital status was associated with social support. Grandparent's gender had a significant relationship with grandparent's depression and grandparenting time per day. Social support had a direct effect to the grandparent's depression; however, it was not a statistically significant mediator between grandparenting and grandparent's depression. In addition, household type was not a significant moderator of measuring the relationships among grandparenting, grandparent's depression, and social support. Implications for social work practice were discussed based on the result of the study.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.293-301
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to redefine 7 social exclusion factors and to derive association between social exclusion factors and depression of middle and older elderly, focused on gender differences. The elderly aged over 50 years old were extracted from the data of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing (KLoSA) in 2016. The data was analyzed by descriptive analysis, chi-squared test, and binary logistic regression analysis, using SAS 9.4. As a result, the elderly who were excluded from labor, residence, health, and relationship were found to be associated to depression. In addition, male with resident exclusion were associated with depression compared to non-excluded. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the local community programs in which elderly people can participate in labor and cultural activity. It is necessary to improve labor and culture exclusion by increasing the participation opportunities of various cultural programs. In addition, it is needed to establish specific guidelines for eliminating the social exclusion of overall elderly.

• 한국노년학
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.709-726
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• 2010

As S. Korea is aging faster than any other industrialized countries, there exists a need to understand how best to improve the quality of life of the elders. The main purpose of this study is to examine the predictors of life satisfaction in the nationally representative sample of adults aged 65 and older (n=4,155) drawn from the Wave I (2006) of the Korean Longitudinal Study on Aging. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was run to assess the unique explanatory contribution of socio-demographics, social network, activity participation, and physical/psychological health on the life satisfaction. Three separate analyses were undertaken to note differences by education level: older adults with no formal education, those who had completed 9th grade, and those who had completed 12th grade and more. There are three main findings: 1) Physical/psychological health variables such as subjective health, regular exercise, and depression were significant predictors of life satisfaction regardless of education level; 2) While social network and activity participation factors influence life satisfaction of the two lower education groups, such factors don't affect the highest education group; 3) Marital status, household income, and location of residence were significant demographic predictors of life satisfaction regardless of education level. Implications for program development and policy are discussed in this paper.

• 한국노년학
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.1125-1139
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• 2016

The current study examines whether retirement changes health behaviors and how the effect differs by reasons for retirement. This study conducts fixed-effects logistic regression analyses, using data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA) over the period 2006 through 2014. Results indicates that retirees are more likely to participate in regular exercise compared to their employed counterparts. Retirement is positively associated with participation in regular exercise regardless of reasons for retirement. The odds of being engaged in smoking among retirees are 50% less relative to those for employees. However, analyses by reasons for retirement reveal that only participants who retired for health problems or reaching retirement age are less likely to smoke cigarettes compared to employed participants. Retirees show significantly lower odds in drinking compared to employees. Yet, further analyses present that only individuals who retired due to health problems are less likely to drink alcohol. Overall, these results suggest that retirement may provide opportunities for positive changes in health behaviors. The present study imply that individuals who retired due to health problems benefits most from retirement in terms of health behaviors compared to retirees who retired for other reasons.

• 한국노년학
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.1035-1055
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between public care and family care. Public care for older adults began in 2008 with the implementation of the Long-Term Care insurance in South Korea. Although the expansion of public care has the purpose of reducing the care burden for the family, it is not easy to say whether the developments of public care system reduce the amount of family care for older family members. Theoretically, public care and family care are expected to have various relationships depending on the degree of the role and function(substitution, hierarchical compensatory, task specific, supplementation, complementarity). And literatures have showed inconsistent results depending on the country, data, and methods. In this study, we analyzed the relationship between two care types focusing on home care services for older persons. Analyses were based on data from the second(2008) to sixth(2016) waves of Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing(KLoSA). To investigate elderly care dynamics in the households, we pooled the data for four changes between two periods(2008-2010, 2010-2012, 2012-2014, and 2014-2016). This study used an analytic sample of 262 older adults, who are aged 55 over and experienced public care at least one point of time. We used Fixed-Effects(FE) model to analyze the differences within the same individuals under the condition that time-invariant unobserved factors are controlled. This study distinguished the cases of entry into public care and other cases of exiting public care. The results showed that older people who are dependent on public care are less dependent on family care than before. In both entry and exit groups, negative relations were maintained, but in the entering stage of public care, the degree of negative relations was relatively small, whereas in the stage of maintaining or departing from public care, relatively negative relations were strong. At the beginning periods, even though public care increased, family care did not decrease significantly. On the other hand, at the time of ending public care and relying on family care, family care increased significantly. The results of this study show that the relationship between public care and family care is close to hierarchical compensatory model and varies according to the stage of caring transition. Also, it was found that the cases of transition from public care to family care have the biggest burden of elderly care than other groups.

• 한국노년학
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.551-567
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• 2018

Demographic and socio-structural information is useful to identify potential welfare recipients who are in need of disease-prevention and intervention services. Thus, the present study aims to explore the differences in grip strength among middle and old-aged adults by living conditions and by living area. The 5th wave data of Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging was utilized. The dependent variable was grip strength, and the independent variables were living alone (living alone or not) and living area (city or non-city). Covariates were age, education, log-transformed household income, spouse existence, body mass index, self-rated health conditions, depressive symptoms, cognitive function, smoking, regular exercise, frequency of meeting with friends, and the number of social participation. Regression analysis was performed for middle-aged men, middle-aged women, old-aged men, and old-aged women, respectively. ANOVA and Chi-test were additionally used to specifically discuss significant results. Cross-sectional weight was applied to all analyses. According to the results, living alone and living area did not have significant effects on grip strength among middle-aged men, old-aged men, and old-aged women. In middle-aged women, however, living alone and living area were significantly associated with grip strength. To be specific, middle-aged women who lived alone in rural areas had the lowest grip strength compared to other middle-aged women. Additional analysis showed that middle-aged women who lived alone in rural areas had risk factors, such as low education level, low income, or high depressive symptoms. It implies that middle-aged women living alone in rural areas may have physical health risks, so they might be in need of disease prevention. This study is meaningful in that it can provide reliable information on the latent welfare recipients by using representative panel data and applying weight values.

• 한국노년학
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.195-209
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• 2011

This study examined the prevalence of and factors associated with unmet care need among community-dwelling middle-aged and older people in Korea. Data were from the 2006 Korean Longitudinal Study on Ageing (KLoSA), a national survey of 10,254 non-institutionalized adults aged 45 or older. Having unmet care needs was defined as needing personal assistance with activities of daily living (ADL) or instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) but having no available helper. Weighted logistic regressions were fitted to examine factors associated with unmet care needs. Overall, 7.3%, 14.5%, and 41.8% of subjects among the middle-aged, younger old, and older old, respectively, reported care needs of these, 34%, 33%,and 24% had unmet needs. Factors associated with unmet needs differed among the three groups: Education and income level were negatively associated with unmet needs among the middle-aged, but living alone was the only factor positively associated with unmet needs in both the younger and older old. The prevalence of and factors associated with unmet care needs differ by life-stage. Needed are home- and community-based care and services to meet the need for personal assistance among the elderly living alone in a community.

• Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.584-594
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• 2011

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the prevalence of visual and hearing impairment and to investigate the effect of visual and hearing impairment on depression and cognitive function in community-dwelling Korean elderly. Methods: The study population consisted of a representative community sample of 4,028 persons aged 65 and older from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging 2008. Depression and cognitive function were measured by CES-D 10-item scale and K-MMSE. Visual and hearing impairment were measured by 5-Likert scale. Data were analyzed using Rao-Scott ${\chi}^2$-test, simple and multiple logistic regression. Results: The prevalence of visual and hearing impairment were 37.3% and 14.0%, respectively. Of the participants, the prevalence of depression was 58.4% and cognitive impairment was 50.6%. There were significant differences in depression and cognitive function according to visual and hearing impairment. Far vision and hearing impairment were predictors for both depression and cognitive impairment even after covariates had been adjusted. Conclusion: These data suggest that visual and hearing impairment in older adults may increase their probability of experiencing depression and cognitive impairment. Thus sensory impairment should be considered a risk factor for mental health and the cognitive function of elderly.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.11 no.8
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• pp.229-236
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• 2020

This study was conducted to identify the influence of the convergent lifestyles of the elderly consisting of physical exercise, smoking, drinking and social participation and the types of social participation on the risk of cognitive decline by using the 6th Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing(KLoSA). Total 4,298 people aged 65 or older were included. Results show that all of lifestyle factors are significantly effected to prevent cognitive decline, social participation was derived as the most important explanatory variable to lower the risk of cognitive decline. In addition, participating in the religious groups, ascriptive groups, and expressive groups lowered the risk of cognitive decline. Therefore, active support at the community and policy for improving the convergent lifestyle of the elderly are needed.