• 한국노년학
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.1055-1068
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• 2008

Given the central role of sense of control in physical and emotional well-being, the present study examined the determinants of sense of control among Korean elders. We considered sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender, marital status, education, and self-perceived economic status), health-related factors (chronic conditions, functional disability, and sensory impairment), stressful life events, and network-related resources (network of relatives, network of friends, and filial satisfaction) as potential predictors. Sense of control was measured with Pearlin and Schooler's (1978) Mastery Scale. Hierarchical regression analyses with 291 Korean elders aged 60 or older (M age = 69.9) identified lower self-perceived economic status, more chronic conditions, greater functional disability, greater vision impairment, more stressful life events, and lower filial satisfaction as significant risk factors for a diminished sense of control. Because most of the identified risks represent normative experiences during later life, the results underscored the importance of preserving or promoting sense of control for older adults. Implications of the findings and recommendations for future studies are discussed.

• 한국노년학
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.785-808
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• 2016

This study portraits the way of self-preparation for death among the elderly and examines the meaning and values attached to the elderly-care by their family and friends through the analysis of Kyung-ran Jo's novels. First, the author describes the difficulties and inner conflict of women who provide care for the elderly, especially those facing death in the near future. She also describes how the acceptance of death and self-discovery among the caregivers can be developed from the experience of long term care. These are consistent with the arguments by Ecofemnist on positive sides of providing caregiving in an aging society. In her novels, caregiving from young women is not described as the consequences of internalized gender norms of traditional Confucian culture. Rather, it is depicted as attitude toward a life in a commune where the meaning of life and death of elderly is shared between generations. In addition, struggles of the elderly figures against diseases and the process of their death provide an opportunity for young caregivers to overcome the trauma of other's death witnessed in their childhood. They lead the young caregivers to reflect themselves by raising ontologistic questions on life and death. The author shows the communication between generations presenting the self-preparation of death from the old generation undergoing irreversible aging and caregiving activities of significant others from the young generation. In doing so, the author points out the ethical grounds for diseases and death in old age given the condition of personalization of death in the modern society.

• 한국노년학
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.547-562
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to identify correlations between physical satisfaction and self-esteem of elderly women so as to provide information for finding out ways of developing their self-esteem. The subjects of this study were 387 elderly women in S city. The statistics used for data analysis were frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, reliability and multiple regression analysis through the SAS package program. The results of this study were as follows : 1) The physical satisfaction of elderly women were 11.6 which was low, And the self-esteem were 36 which was high. 2) The variables related to physical satisfaction were age, education, health state, income, economic state, household and religion. The variables related to self-esteem were spouse, household, religion, education, health state, income, economic state, physical satisfaction and age. 3) The variables affecting physical satisfaction were health state, income, spouse. The variables affecting self-esteem were physical satisfaction, economic state, age, household and religion.

• 한국노년학
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.431-446
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• 2012

The objective of this study is to introduce the theory of Gerotranscendence and the ninth stage of Erikson & Erikson(1997)'s psycho-social development theory in order to enable the academic Korean field to have a more positive and fresher point of view on aging. In order to meet this objective, this study will first take a look at Erikson's 9th stage expansion theory on human development. Then we will study Gerotranscendence as the most representing phenomena among the 9 stage theory so that the Korean Gerontology field can utilize it for future plans. The definition of Gerotranscendence was first introduced by Tornstam(1994) and has been applied as Erikson & Erikson's 9 stage theory ever since. Gerotranscendence can be described as an individual that has entered his golden years after middle age, which transforms one's point of view on life from a materialistic and logical one to a more universal and transcending one. Gerotranscendence is a voluntary and overcoming process of oneself that is displayed in many seniors which leads to a lesser focus on oneself in the eyes of the society, but increases the inter-relational bonding between past and future generations. The following is a summary of the theorhetical evaluation on Gerotranscendence which was analyzed in this study. First, this study introduces the Gerotranscendence theory, which is recognized as the most representative phenomena among Erikson's 9th stage theory that has hence expanded the application of Gerontology theories in the academic field of Gerontology. Second, this study has provided a new point of view towards the elderly in the practical field of senior citizen social welfare. With this understanding, practical levels of services from various points of view can be provided to acknowledge the needs of the elderly. Third, a much wider field of research can be exchanged and provided along with other fields of studies by applying and extending this Gerotranscendence theory in Korea. It would also be especially beneficial to exchange researches within related fields of study such as psychology, sociology, nursing science, family science and the study of religion. Not to mention also lending support to hospitals for the elderly(nursing homes) and institutions related to senior welfare, or practical fields where there is an active exchange of research using Gerotranscendence theory.

• 한국노년학
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.309-327
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• 2018

Meta-analysis was conducted on 34 studies reported in Korea from February 2007 through March 2017 to systematically integrate factors of aging anxiety of the middle and old aged. The variables related to aging anxiety were divided into 6 groups of variable, and the effect sizes were computed for each variable of their groups. The results are as follows. First, the total effect size showed the middle effect size, and the effect size according to the variable group showed the largest effect size for the negative psychological variable group, followed by the positive psychological variable, the social variable, the physical variable, the familial variable and the demographic variable. Second, the largest effect size of the sub-variables showed psychological well-being and death anxiety. As described above, suggesting that these variables may have a strong influence on aging anxiety among the variables related to aging anxiety because the psychological well-being and death anxiety were shown as the largest effective variables related to aging anxiety.

• 한국노년학
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.871-889
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• 2018

This study aims to explore social participation needs among the elderly in Korea from the perspective of the elderly participant's. 40 Q-samples are drawn from the Q-population including attitudes and needs toward social participation in later life based on news articles, essays, research, documentary, and television shows. 35 subjects are analysed by the QUANL program and the types of social participation needs are divided into four patterns which accounted for 60.16% of the total variance. The elderly's portrayal of an ideal social participation is about making independent decisions and being able to actively participate in the activities they chose to do. However, their most undesirable scenario would be being confused and uncertain of what they should do the remainder of their lives. The needs of social participation among the elderly varies on four indicators such as ego, social capital, life satisfaction, life vitality and these four indicators have two sub-categories with a total of 8 types of classification. These 8 types differ by priorities, adaptation to life changes, motivation to social participation, and desired activity. Findings suggest that researchers and policy makers need to consider service user perspective on social participation in later life, not service provider perspective.

• 한국노년학
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.91-109
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• 2020

This study aims to investigate the interdependence of Korean middle and old-aged couples in the association between exercise and life satisfaction through grip strength trajectory. Data were drawn from the nationally representative Korea Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA) collected from 2006 to 2016. The sample included couples over 45 years of age in the first wave and participated in all six waves of the survey (Ncouple=1,997). There were three steps for analyses: correlation, parallel latent growth curve model, tests of indirect effects of the mediation paths. Covariates included in the models were husbands and wives' characteristics (age, education, work status, chronic diseases, marital satisfaction, contact frequency with friends or neighbors) and couple's household income. Results showed husbands' and wives' life satisfaction and grip strength were interdependent upon each other. Also, exercise participation of both husbands and wives was associated with both husbands' and wives' life satisfaction via the initial level of grip strength of husbands. Moreover, exercise participation of only husbands was associated with wives' life satisfaction through the initial grip strength of husbands. These results suggest the aging processes of middle and old-aged couples need to be understood in the context of gender dynamics and couple interdependence.

• 한국노년학
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.947-971
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• 2010

The present research is aimed at to examine the relationships between wisdom and age, also between wisdom and its psychological adaptation among middle and elder adults in Korea. Moreover, using data on 240 middle-aged and elder adults, the relationship between different aspects of wisdom and aging well were not only examined, but also explored age differences of wisdom through adulthood. The major findings from the study are summarized as follows. first, the wisdom scores of middle-aged and elder adults were significantly higher than those of young adults. While 'cognitive competency' and 'positive life attitude' factors had no significant differences. It means that 'cognitive competency' and 'positive life attitude' wisdom could be stable across adulthood. However, 'moderation and balance' and 'sympathetic interpersonal relationship' wisdom of elders were significantly higher than those of young adults. second, in middle and elder adults, Wisdom was found to be positively related with life satisfaction, well-being, death acceptance, experiences of positive emotion, generativity, ego integration, and positive life review. while on the other hand, contrast wisdom to be negatively related with depression, fear of death, perceived stress and experiences of negative emotion. The results from the study were examined by ecological validity of wisdom. Accordingly, a number of limitations and implications of the research were acknowledged.

• 한국노년학
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.705-723
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• 2018

In this study we review the selected articles on elderly health and medical care published in the Journal of the Korea Gerontological Society (JKGS) in the last 40 years, and make suggestions for future research directions for gerontological health and medical care issues. Of all the 40 year publications from volume 1 (1980) to 38 (2017), we first examined the 30th anniversary review on the subject of gerontological nursing care and healthcare policies published in JKGS from 1980 (vol. 1, No. 1) to 2008 (vol. 28, No. 2), and reviewed recent 237 researches of this decade (out of all 655 articles from 2008, vol. 28, No. 3 to 2017, vol. 38, No. 4). We could find the following trends. Firstly, the analysis of the primary authors in the past 10 years revealed that those in public health, nursing and other health-related including physical education areas have dealt the subjects focusing on physical health while those in social welfare mostly on mental health. That is, physical health has been the prime subject of researches in the health and medical care area. Secondly, in the same period quantitative researches were accounted for 89.9%, which is similar to the trend of the first 30 years 81.5 %. On the other hand, qualitative studies were only 11 cases and the focus group interview were the most frequently used method comprising 33.3% among them. Thirdly, the non-experimental researches in the past 10 years comprise 65.4%, which was 82.7% in 1980 2008 period, indicating the increasing trend in experimental researches to deal with the issues in medical and healthcare fields. Lastly, the subjects of the researches were mostly the elders who are healthy, residents of city areas, or home dwellers, and 60% of them were over 65 years old in the past 10 years while the proportion was 42.7% in the previous review period. 81.6 % of the researches in the past 10 years was dealing both genders, slightly decreased trend compared to 88.5% of the previous review period. This study reveals that the researches in non-experimental physical health remains the main stream of JKGS despite the efforts by some researchers to diversify the methods and subjects. Systematic and in-depth researches employing multidisciplinary, qualitative, longitudinal and meta-analytical approaches are called for to guide the gerontolgical health issues with preventive and proactive perspectives.

• 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.