• 한국노년학
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2018

Everyday hearing handicap caused by presbycusis ultimately reduces quality of life in older adults. The aim of this study was to explore effects of cognitive impairment on self-reported hearing handicap in older adults with early-stage presbycusis. We compared K-HHIE scores between 40 elderly subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and age- and hearing-threshold matched 40 cognitively normal elderly (CNE) subjects. The results are as follows: 1) The MCI group scored significantly higher than the CNE group on the social/situational and emotional sections, and in total. 2) The MCI group scored significantly higher than the CNE group on all four subscales, and the most significant group difference was on the first subscale relating to interpersonal relationships and social handicaps. 3) Both groups scored highest on the item 8 (problems hearing whispering sounds) and item 15 (problems hearing TV or radio sounds). Besides those two items, the MCI group also scored high on the item 21 (problems hearing in a restaurant), item 6 (problems hearing when attending a party), item 3 (avoiding groups of people), and item 20 (personal or social restrictions). Our findings suggest that, among older adults with early-stage presbycusis, older adults with cognitive impairment tend to report greater everyday hearing handicap than their peers with normal cognitive function. Especially, they show significant problems hearing in background noise or multi-talker situations, which cause social restrictions and social/emotional loneliness.

• 한국노년학
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.981-1001
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• 2016

At old age, as people depend on superficial clues when they interpret the overall context of communication, their ability to understand connotative and figurative words and articles could deteriorate. In this study, 50 normal young(junior) people and normal old(senior) people were made to perform a task to understand similes, metaphors, idioms, and proverbs, the sub-areas of figurative language. For the task, participants were made to understand a paragraph consisting of several sentences and select a correct answer representing appropriate figurative language. As a result of the analysis, first, old people showed a lower level of performance than young people in all the sub-areas of figurative language. Second, in understanding idiomatic words and proverbs, old people showed a lower level of performance due to unfamiliarity. Third, for the types of wrong answers, old people mostly understood only the literal meanings in all the sub-areas of figurative language. Due to aging, old people come to have a lowered level of the pragmatic language ability, reasoning ability, and inhibiting ability to efficiently communicate with others considering certain situations and contexts. Thus, old people could have difficulties in understanding inner meanings from others in daily communication.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.37-47
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• 2022

The purpose of the this study is to observe the effects of healthy adults' age on temporal features of speech and identify which could differentiate older and young adults. We examined speech rates(i.e., overall speaking rate, articulation rate), occurrence of pause, and duration of pause per utterance by utilizing the National Institute of Korean Language's open corpus. We selected a total of 30 healthy adults (10 young, 10 middle-aged, and 10 older adults) in this study. There were significant differences among the groups in the overall speaking rate, articulation rate, total occurrence of pause, the occurrence of pause between syntactic words, total duration of pause, and duration of pause between syntactic words. The older and middle-aged adults showed slower speech rates and longer and more frequent pause than young adults. But there were no significant differences among the three groups in terms of pause within syntactic word. The overall speaking rate significantly differentiated older adults from young adults. These findings suggested that the effect of speakers' age was reflected in gradual changes in the temporal features of their speech.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.11
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• pp.359-373
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• 2015

Cognitive reserve(CR) is the ability to optimize or maximize performance through complementary brain networks. CR is relevant to normal aging in cognitive-linguistic abilities. There are few domestic systematic reviews or meta-analyses that analyze the relationships between multiple CR and cognitive-linguistic domains in healthy older people. This meta-analysis included 32 studies published since 2000. In result, education level topped the list, followed by the occupation, cognitively stimulating activities, and the multilingualism. Most studies were related to memory, global cognition, and language. CR had a modest positive association with cognitive-linguistic performance. Multiple domains including memory and language also showed the significant correlations across most measures of CR. This study provides evidence-based information to support cognitive-linguistic ability in normal aging.

• 재활복지
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.229-246
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• 2016

The aim of this study is to conduct superordinate word selection task to compare their performance and reaction time, and superordinate word writing task to compare the differences in their performance and error pattern in 40 elderly adults and 43 young adults. As a result, first, in both tasks, elderly adults had a smaller number of correct responses. Second, elderly adults showed slower reaction time than young adults. Third, in superordinate word writing task, elderly adults showed more relevant errors than irrelevant errors. The reason elderly adults had a smaller number of correct responses in both tasks was that the links among the pieces of information in the semantic lexicon weakened or deteriorated due to normal aging. Slower reaction time was based on neurophysiological changes of the brain and cognitive processing speed. In addition, the relevant errors showed that they could access the lexicon for target words and produce explanation the relevant characteristics, even though they could not retrieve the target words.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.548-556
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• 2016

Cognitive-linguistic changes that normally accompany aging are often simply an annoyance, but in some instances they may herald a more perilous course of decline to a state of neurological disease. This study investigated the correlation between subjective and objective tests on cognitive-linguistic abilities in older adults and the predictors of objective performances. Healthy elders over 65 years of age (n=63) and their informants (n=63) completed the subjective and objective cognitive-linguistic tests (ISCOLE and CAPTBI) from July of 2015 to February of 2016. The main findings were as follows: performance on the self-report test was not significantly different from that on the informant-report test. Additionally, eight domains in older adults group and 15 domains in the informants group were significantly associated with performance on the objective test. Finally, language on the informant-report test was a predictor of several abilities including problem solving and memory on the informant-report test predicted executive function and language. The present study demonstrates that two groups have significant differences in correlation between subjective and objective tests on the cognitive-linguistic abilities, and there are more relevant domains in rating by informants. These findings have implications for the use of cognitive-linguistic evaluation and preventive intervention in clinical settings.

• 재활복지
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.193-212
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• 2017

The elderly often produce irrelevant speech and get off-topic more easily than the young; the former also has difficulty generating fewer syntactic structures and makes errors of grammatical morphemes. In particular, the elderly might have more difficulty writing since it requires more complex cognitive processes than storytelling. The participants in this study were 32 young people and 32 older people. They were asked to write a short story of Korean fairy tale('Heungbu Nolbu'). The data was analyzed in narrative composition and syntactic structures. The study revealed the following: First, in composition aspects, the elderly group showed significantly lower total number of story grammar and episodes. In addition, the elderly produced more off topic statements. Second, in syntactic aspects, although there was no significant difference in the number of producing complex sentences between two groups, the elderly group generated more inadequate cohesive devices and used fewer relative and adverbial clauses. These findings suggest that the elderly have a tendency to perform tasks by producing more off-topic statements and shows decreasing coherence by using lower number of relative and adverbial clauses. However, this study also uncovers that the elderly were able to write more complex and longer sentences using visual feedback.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.7414-7423
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• 2015

Subjective cognitive-linguistic complaints in older adults contribute to the diagnostic and prognostic investigation of MCI or dementia. However, the utility of subjective test for predicting cognitive-linguistic decline is controversial. Few domestic studies have included the correlation between subjective and objective tests systematically. The current study analyzed 26 studies published since 2000, and the effect sizes of their correlation coefficients between two tests were computed. The results of qualitative analysis indicated that the number of subjects ranged from 26 to 657. Subjective tests included the self-report 75.4% and the informant-report 24.6%. In objective tests, memory comprised the largest proportion, followed by global cognition, and language, etc. As a result of meta-analysis, self-report test had the predictive value for dementia, and informant-report test contributed to discriminate among 3 groups. In the elderly group, self-report test was correlated with reasoning, and informant-report test with memory and language. In MCIs, self-report test predicted several abilities including language, and informant-report test signaled the future decline of domains like global cognition. Two types of subjective tests in dementia also represented memory, language, and global cognition accurately. This study provides evidence-based information to support relationships between subjective and objective tests for cognitive-linguistic ability in 3 groups.

• 재활복지
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.279-293
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• 2014

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of task presentation methods (animation vs. picture) on verb naming abilities as a function of verb argument structures for normal elderly adults. Participants were categorized into the two groups: animation group(n=21) vs. picture group(n=21). Data for the animation group were from obtained from Sung and Choi (2012). Percent of accuracy for the verb naming task served as a dependent measure for statistical analyses. After the years of education was controlled as a covariate, a two-way mixed ANOVA was performed with the group as a between-subject factor and the argument structure(1-, 2-, and 3-place) as a within-subject factor. Results revealed that there was a significant interaction between the group and argument structure, whereas there were no main effects for either of the factors. The animation group performed better than the picture group for one-place verb, whereas the opposite pattern was observed for the three-place verbs. The results suggested that the presentation methods are one of the critical factors that influenced verb naming abilities in elderly adults.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.262-267
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• 2012

Purpose: This study was designed to analyze the differences in cerebral cortex activity of the elderly after extracting the movement related cortical potentials (MRCPs) from electroencephalogram (EEG) during a concentric and eccentric contraction of the elbow joint flexors, and entering them into the brain-mapping program to make the images. Methods: Right-dominant normal elderly people were divided into an eccentric contraction group and a concentric contraction group. Then, their MRCPs were measured using EEG and sEMG, during an eccentric and concentric contraction. Then, they were converted into images using the brain-mapping program. Results: Eccentric contraction group's $C_3$ and Cz showed statistically higher mean values of MRCP positive potential than the concentric contraction group. Conclusion: Researching a cerebral cortex activity, using MRCP, would provide basic data for clinical neuro-physiological researches on aging or neural plasticity of patients with a central nervous system injury.