• Journal of muscle and joint health
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.102-110
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• 2021

Purpose: This study aimed to verify the effects of a community-based fall prevention exercise program for older adults on lower extremity muscle strength, balance ability, and fall efficacy. Methods: This study recruited 30 participants, and the program was conducted for 10 weeks. The program included sessions on strength and balance exercises, conducted for 50 minutes a day and at least three times a week. The collected data were analyzed using non-parametric (Wilcoxon signed-rank test, generalized estimated equation) and parametric statistics (paired t-test, rmANOVA). Results: After 12 weeks of exercise program, lower extremity muscle strength and static-dynamic balance ability significantly increased. The fall efficacy increased from an average score of 2.48 points before the test to an average score of 2.91 points after the test. Regarding general characteristics, there were no significant differences in effect before and after the program, except for fall efficacy. Conclusion: The above results showed that the intervention of a community-based fall prevention exercise program for older adults was effective. Therefore, it is suggested that this exercise program be organized regularly within the center to provide periodic and long-term services.

• Journal of East-West Nursing Research
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.122-131
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• 2022

Purpose: This study aimed to identify the factors related to fear of falling (FOF) in different age groups from community-dwelling mid to late-adults. Methods: To identify the factors related to FOF, data of 162,684 adults over 45 years of age from 2019 Community Health Survey was analyzed using logistic regression with complex samples. Results: Factors related to FOF found in all age groups were sex, previous experience of falls, physical activity levels over moderate intensity, subjective health status, number of chronic diseases, stress, depression, and cognitive decline. In the 45-64 age group, the FOF was significantly higher in the groups of low education level and low monthly household income. In the 65-74 and over 75 age groups, the FOF was significantly higher in the groups of not living with spouse and walking not practiced. Conclusion: We suggests that understanding of risk factors and early detection of fall risk patients in each age group are necessary to establish and apply tailored fall prevention programs for prevention and management of the FOF in community-dwelling mid to late-adults.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.63-73
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• 2022

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the predictors influencing fear of falling in community-dwelling elderly women with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Methods: A secondary data analysis was performed using data of 65 years or older elderly women with MCI participating in the 7th Korea Longitudinal Study of Ageing of the Korea Employment Information Service. The study subjects included 368 elderly women with MCI. For data analysis, descriptive statistics and logistic regression with complex samples were performed using IBM SPSS ver. 23.0. Results: 89.9% of the elderly women with MCI had fear of falling. There were significant factors such as religion (OR=8.85, 95% CI: 3.39~23.15), restriction of activity (OR=6.84, 95% CI: 2.14~21.90), depression (OR=0.75, 95% CI: 0.62~0.90), and MMSE (OR=1.30, 95% CI: 1.03~1.63), predicting fear of falling in community-dwelling elderly women with MCI. Conclusion: Differentiated strategies should be developed for elderly women with MCI to decrease fear of falling and prevent falls with understanding of contributing factors. This study will provide fundamental information on programming and a policy proposal related to fear of falling for elderly women with MCI.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.565-574
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• 2015

Falls are the main cause of serious injuries and accidental deaths in people over the age of 65. Due to widespread adoption of smartphones, there has been a growing interest in the use of smartphones for detecting human behavior and activities. Modern smartphones are equipped with a wide variety of sensors such as an accelerometer, a gyroscope, camera, GPS, digital compass and microphone. In this paper, we introduce a new method that determines the fall direction of human subjects by analyzing the three axis components of acceleration vector.

• Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.244-252
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• 2012

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to develop a knowledge scale of risk factors for fall among community-dwelling older adults. Further, the validity and reliability of the scale was developed. Methods: A preliminary scale was developed through content validity by five experts and targeted subjects using the CVI (Content Validity Index). Following the establishment of content validity, the scale was used with 359 community-dwelling older adults to further establish both validity and reliability of the scale. Specifically, construct validity using known-group comparison technique, and reliability using Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ were established. Results: After content validity testing, 44 preliminary items were selected. Construct validity was established by known group-comparison, in which scores between the fall and no fall groups were compared. The Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ of the final scale was .83. Conclusion: Reliability and validity of the scale were confirmed. This tool may be used for measuring knowledge of fall risk factor for the community-dwelling older adults.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.373-384
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• 2013

This paper is the second paper among two papers which constitute the paper about the rigid body dynamic analysis on the spent nuclear fuel disposal canister under accidental drop and impact to the ground. This paper performed the numerical study on the rigid body dynamic analysis. Through this study the impulsive force which is occurring in the spent nuclear fuel disposal canister under accidental drop and impact to the ground and required for the structural safety design of the canister is computed numerically. The main content of this numerical study is about the technical method how to compute the impulsive forces occurring in the canister under accidental drop and impact to the ground by using the commercial rigid body dynamic analysis computer codes. On the basis of this study the impulsive force which is occurring in the canister in the case of collision with the ground is numerically computed. This numerically computed impulsive force is increasing as the canister weight is increasing, and the canister falls plumb down and collides with the ground in three types according to the analysis results.

• Child Health Nursing Research
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.215-224
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• 2014

Purpose: This study was conducted to identify risk factors in hospitalized children, and to develop and validate a fall-risk assessment tool for hospitalized children. Methods: A retrospective chart review was performed at one university children's hospital, and an analysis was done of the characteristics of all patients who fell during a 44-month period (n=48). These patients were compared with another 149 hospitalized children who did not fall. Results: Significant predictors of falls as identified in a multivariate logistic regression analyses were age of less than 3 years old, neurological diagnosis including epilepsy, children's dependency of ADL, physical developmental delay, multiple usage of fall-risk-increasing drugs. The respective odds ratios ranged from 2.4 to 7.1 with 95% confidence interval (p<0.05). Accordingly, defining patients with either 5 risk factors as fall-prone hospitalized children provided a sensitivity of 93.6% and specificity of 16.2%. Conclusion: The results show that this tool has an acceptable level of sensitivity to assess the risk factors of fall in hospitalized children even though the specificity was low, suggesting that this tool may enable nurses to predict the risk level of childhood falls, and develop preventive strategies against pediatric falls in children's units.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.12-17
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• 2009

Purpose: In this study, the prognostic significance of the Injury Severity Score (ISS) and the height of fall in free-fall patients were investigated. Methods: The medical records of 179 victims of falls from a height who were brought alive to the Emergency Department of Gyeongsang National University Hospital between January 2003 and December 2007 were analyzed. The age, the sex of the patients, the rate of admission, the hospital stay, the site of injury, the severity of injury, the rate of surgery, the site of the fall and the presence of alcohol intoxication were evaluated by using a retrospective review of the medical records. Injury severity was measured by using the ISS. Patients were categorized into four subgroups according to the height from where they had fallen. The data were statistically analyzed with using SPSS ver. 10.0. Results: The admission rates for the subgroups with falls of less than 3 stories were significantly lower than those for the subgroups with higher heights of falls (70.7% vs. 100%, p<0.05). These two subgroups showed statistically significant differences in mean hospital stay ($17.11{\pm}24.88$ vs. $56.73{\pm}49.21$, p<0.05), rate of operation (30.6% vs. 53.8%, p<0.05), and mean ISS ($6.86{\pm}4.97$ vs. $13.96{\pm}9.14$, p<0.05). In the correlation analysis, the ISS and the mean hospital stay showed the highest correlation with correlation coefficient of 0.666. Conclusion: In this retrospective analysis of 179 free-fall patients, we evaluated the prognostic factors affecting the outcomes for the free-fall patients. The patients who had fallen from heights of 3 stories or higher showed statistically significant higher rates of admission, longer durations of hospital stay, higher ISSs, and higher operation rates. The most accurate factor in predicting the length of hospital stay was the ISS.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.283-290
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• 2012

Objectives: People who have chronic diseases, as well as gait imbalance or psychiatric drug use, may be susceptible to injuries from falls and slips. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of musculoskeletal diseases on incidental fall-related injuries among adults in Korea. Methods: We analyzed data from the 4th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2007-2009), which are national data obtained by a rolling survey sampling method. The 1-year incidence of fall-related injuries was defined by health service utilization within the last year due to injury occurring after a slip and fall, and musculoskeletal diseases included osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, and back pain. To evaluate the effects of preexisting musculoskeletal diseases, adults diagnosed before the last year were considered the exposed group, and adults who had never been diagnosed were the unexposed group. Results: The weighted lifetime prevalence of musculoskeletal disease was 32 540 per 100 000 persons. Musculoskeletal diseases were associated with a higher risk of fall-related injury after adjustment for sex, age, residence, household income, education, occupation, visual disturbance, paralysis due to stroke, and medication for depression (odds ratio [OR], 1.41; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.03 to 1.93). As the number of comorbid musculoskeletal diseases increased, the risk of fall-induced injuries increased (p-value for trend <0.001). In particular, patients who had any musculoskeletal condition were at much higher risk of recurrent fall-related injuries (OR, 6.20; 95% CI, 1.06 to 36.08). Conclusions: One must take into account the risk of fall-related injuries and provide prevention strategies among adults who have musculoskeletal diseases.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.354-365
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• 2013

The purpose of the study was to develop the home fall prevention checklist for community-dwelling older adults. And the validity and reliability of the checklist were tested. The preliminary questions were developed through content validity by twenty experts using the CVI(Content Validity Index). Following the establishment of content validity, 52 items of the checklist were developed. Responses of 299 community-dwelling older adults were analyzed to further establish both reliability and validity of the checklist. Reliability using cohen's kappa coefficient and test-retest reliability(rate of concordance(%)), and construct validity using known-group comparison technique were tested. 51 items were over 0.80 in the cohen's kappa coefficient of the checklist, 45 items were over 80.0% in test-retest reliability. Construct validity was established by known-group comparison(t=3.50, p=.001). Validity and reliability of the checklist were confirmed. This checklist will help further studies to develop more safe environment to prevent falls.