• 한국노년학
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.747-758
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• 2012

Detecting probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) at an early stage is crucial in slowing the progression of the disease and initiating drug therapy for more effective symptom management. Therefore, this study aimed to identify linguistic features that allow us to distinguish between patients with AD and normal controls. This paper reports on characteristics of spontaneous speech in subjects in three stages of AD (questionable, mild, moderate) compared with education- and age-matched normal controls. Four components of speech were measured in Korean native speakers with AD and normal aging: speech tempo, hesitation (measured in seconds), rate of articulation errors, and rate of grammatical errors. The results revealed significant differences in most of these speech components among the four groups, including significant differences between normal controls and the questionable AD group in the areas of speech tempo and rate of grammatical errors. Phonological? articulatory ability was preserved in questionable AD, and grammatical ability was preserved in questionable and mild AD. Subjects with moderate AD were severely impaired in grammatical ability. Prospective assessments of spontaneous speech skills using a dialogue and picture-description task are useful in detecting the subtle, spontaneous speech impairments that AD causes even in its early stage.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.103-110
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• 2019

The present study investigated the effects of AD on stereoscopic vision. Sixty participants (20 AD patients, 20 mild cognitive impairment patients, 20 healthy elderly controls) participated in the study. Two cubes, one on the left and the other on the right of the center of the monitor, appeared at varying distances from the observer with their relative distances controlled in two disparity conditions (absolute vs relative disparity) combined with two disparity directions (crossed vs uncrossed disparity). Participants identified the object that appeared closer to them. Results demonstrated comparable performance with all three groups performing accurately, suggesting that the effect of AD on stereopsis is negligible. Discussion focused on brain pathology affected by AD involving high level visual processing.

• Therapeutic Science for Rehabilitation
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.21-31
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• 2020

Objective : Reminiscence program is a method to restore psychological stability for the elderly having dementia, and at the same time it makes the aged with dementia express themselves correctly by helping them to recollect their past life memories. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects on communication ability in applying the reminiscence program to elderly patients with Alzheimer's dementia. Methods : The subject were 4 patients whose Alzheimer's dementia of moderate. This experiment was designed with pre-stage, treatment-stage, post-stage. The reminiscence therapy was compose of reminiscence activities of their live; in their childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and senescence. The therapy was delivered 30 times for 15 weeks. Results : The result of the study were as follows. First, after reminiscence therapy, recognition ability was improved. Second, after reminiscence therapy, emotional side was improved. Third, after reminiscence therapy, communication ability was improved. Conclusion : In this study, the reminiscence therapy had a positive effect on the improvement of communication skills among the elderly with Alzheimer's dementia. Based on the reminiscence therapy, it is thought to be very helpful in improving the communication ability of the elderly with dementia in the future.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.119-126
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• 2018

Objectives : The aim of this study is to investigate correlation between degree of white matter hyperintensities (WMH) and neurocognitive function along with behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) in Korean patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Methods : Participants were 115 elderly subjects diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive impairment in this retrospective study. WMH in brain MRI were rated with standardized visual rating scales (Fazekas scales) and the subjects were divided into two groups according to Fazekas scale. Cognitive function was evaluated with Korean version of the consortium to establish a registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD-K), and BPSD was evaluated with Korean neuropsychiatric inventory (K-NPI). Independent t-test was performed to analyze the relationship between the degree of WMH and neurocognitive functions & BPSD. Results : Especially, the group with high severity of WMH showed significantly lower language fluency (p<0.05). In addition, the group with high severity of WMH showed significantly higher score in K-NPI. Conclusions : There was a significant association between WMH and neurocognitive test related with executive function. Moreover, WMH seems to affect BPSD severity. Evaluation of WMH would provide useful information in clinical settings.

• 대한핵의학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.394.1-394.1
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• 2004

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.200-207
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• 2016

Objectives : Alzheimer's disease(AD) is characterized by progressive decline of cognitive function and also by various behavioral psychological symptoms of dementia(BPSD) which causes distress to their caregivers. The purpose of this study was to investigate association between each AD patients' behavioral psychological symptoms and their caregivers' burden. Methods : Participants were 80 AD patients and their caregivers. We used Korean neuropsychiatric inventory (K-NPI) to assess the symptoms of patients and Korean version of Zarit Burden Interview(ZBI) to evaluate caregivers' burden. Results : The results showed ZBI score, which is the index for caregivers' burden, had a statistically significant positive correlation with the frequency of delusion, hallucination, agitation/aggression, depression, anxiety, disinhibition and irritability, the severity of hallucination, agitation/aggression, anxiety, disinhibition, aberrant motor, and sleep, and the global score(frequency${\times}$severity) for delusion, hallucination, agitation/aggression, depression, anxiety, disinhibition, aberrant motor, and sleep. There were significant correlations between each scale for cognitive function(i.e. MMSE-KC, CDR, GDS) and ZBI scale. Correlations between each scale for activity of daily living(i.e. Barthel -ADL, K-ADL) and ZBI scale were also significant. Conclusions : There were a significant correlation between BPSD and caregiver burden. Caregiver burden was also correlated with cognitive function and activity of daily living. Early detection and preventive treatment of these symptoms in BPSD might make improvement of caregivers' quality of life as well as AD patients'.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.1-7
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• 2016

Structural MRI(sMRI) imaging is used to extract morphometric features after Grey Matter (GM), White Matter (WM) for several univariate and multivariate method, and Cerebro-spinal Fluid (CSF) segmentation. A new approach is applied for the diagnosis of very mild to mild AD. We propose the classification method of Alzheimer disease patients from normal controls by combining morphometric features and Gaussian Mixture Models parameters along with MMSE (Mini Mental State Examination) score. The combined features are fed into Multi-kernel SVM classifier after getting rid of curse of dimensionality using principal component analysis. The experimenral results of the proposed diagnosis method yield up to 96% stratification accuracy with Multi-kernel SVM along with high sensitivity and specificity above 90%.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.60-68
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• 2019

Objectives : The association between thyroid-related hormones and cognitive function has been controversial. The purpose of this study is to compare the levels of thyroid-related hormones in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Furthermore, we investigated the relationship between thyroid-related hormones and cognitive function. Methods : From January 2011 to December 2018, we retrospectively reviewed 105 patients who were diagnosed with AD and MCI by visiting a dementia clinic at Ilsan Paik Hospital. Thyroid-related hormones [triiodothyronine (T3), thyroxine (T4), and thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH)] was measured using chemiluminescent immunoassay. An independent sample t-test was performed to analyze the mean value of thyroid-related hormones in patients of AD and MCI. To investigate whether thyroid-related hormones correlate significantly with Global deterioration scale (GDS), Clinical dementia rating (CDR) and scores of each The Korean version of the consortium to establish a registry for Alzheimer's disease items, we conducted a partial correlation analysis with geriatric depression scale-Korean version (GDS-K) scores as covariates. Results : There was no significant difference in the mean serum T3, T4 and TSH levels between patients of the AD and the MCI, but the Construction Praxis Test (CPT) showed a significant positive correlation with the serum TSH concentration (p-value=0.004). Conclusions : In our study, the positive correlation between serum TSH level and the CPT associated with executive function was found to be helpful in understanding the association between thyroid-related hormones and the pathophysiology of dementia. Prospective studies in regard of the pathophysiology of thyroid-related hormones on cognitive function will be necessary in the future.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.6201-6213
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of Reality Orientation Therapy and Spaced Retrieval Therapy of the applied of CERAD-K type cognitive rehabilitation program for mild Alzheimer's patients. The tool used to this study was CERAD-K neuropsychological test consists of Boston Naming, a simple mental status, the word list recall, and configure behavior. A non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest design was used. The participants were 85 mild Alzheimer's patients (experimental group: 32, control group: 53) who registered G Health Center, in Gyeonggi province. Those Data were collected from 10:00 to 11:00, 14:00 to 15:00, twice a week on Tuesday and Friday, 8 session, from September 1 to September 30, 2014. Control group was participated daily routine program only in the G public health center.The data were analyzed using SPSS WIN 21.0 program. The results of this study were as follows;Boston Naming(F=3.22, p<.001), simple mental status(F=5.92, p<.001), and configure behavior(F=4.67, p<.001) were accepted, but word list recall(F=.75 p>.05) was not accepted. The study findings indicate that the Reality Orientation Therapy and Spaced Retrieval Therapy of the applied of CERAD-K type cognitive rehabilitation program is effective and can be recommended as intervention for mild Alzheimer's patients.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.14 no.8
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• pp.213-219
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of error types in naming task for 8 questionable demeatia groups, 9 definite dementia groups, and 10 normal groups. The items of naming error analysis were classified into visual perception errors, semantic association errors, semantic non-correlation errors, phoneme errors, Don't Know, and No Response. For the analysis, descriptive statistics analysis, analysis of variance, and multivariate analysis of variance were conducted using SPSS 21.0. As a result, there was a significant difference in the error rate between groups according to the error type. The errors that showed significant differences between the normal group and the other two groups were visual perception errors and semantic non-related errors. The error of non-response was different from the dementia confirmation group, but there was no significant difference from the dementia suspicion group. These results showed that Alzheimer's patients had a defect in confrontation naming ability. Also, it was found that it is appropriate to provid other clues when the defects caused by the degeneration of a specific step during the information processing process become severe.