• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.31-38
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• 2024

This study proposes a novel approach to enhancing the social inclusion and participation of individuals with developmental disabilities. Utilizing cutting-edge virtual reality (VR) technology, we designed and developed a metaverse simulator that enables individuals with developmental disabilities to safely and conveniently experience indoor handicapped handball sports. This simulator provides an environment where individuals with disabilities can experience and practice handball matches. For the modeling and animation of handball players, we employed advanced modeling and motion capture technologies to accurately replicate the movements required in handball matches. Additionally, we ported various training programs, including basic drills, penalty throws, and target games, onto XR (Extended Reality) devices. Through this research, we have explored the development of immersive assistive tools that enable individuals with developmental disabilities to more easily participate in activities that may be challenging in real-life scenarios. This is anticipated to broaden the scope of social participation for individuals with developmental disabilities and enhance their overall quality of life.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.207-214
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• 2016

The aim of this study was to evaluate Influence on intra-limb coordination in individuals wearing knee brace during walking. Seven healthy male adults ($32.3{\pm}2.7$ years old, $175.2{\pm}3.8cm$, $76.2{\pm}8.7kg$) participated. They wore knee brace or didn't wear any knee brace and were asked to walk along a 10 m long walkway. Spatiotemporal parameters, angles of the lower limbs, and intra-limb continuous relative phase (CRP) were measured and calculated. No differences of spatiotemporal parameters were shown (all p > 0.05). There were no changes in the angle and its range of motion (ROM) in the hip for the subjects as wearing knee brace, while ROM ($65.5{\pm}3.7^{\circ}$ vs. $60.5{\pm}3.5^{\circ}$, p < 0.05) of the angle and maximum flexion angles (stance: $31.9{\pm}4.6$ vs. $25.6{\pm}5.5$, swing: $76.7{\pm}3.1$ vs. $68.9{\pm}3.4$, all p < 0.05) in the knee significantly decreased. No changes in ROM of angle in the ankle were shown, whereas maximum dorsiflexion decreased ($22.4{\pm}2.6$ vs. $19.2{\pm}2.1$, p < 0.05) and maximum plantarflexion increased ($9.5{\pm}3.0$ vs. $15.7{\pm}2.2$, p<0.05). There were no changes in most of CRP between joints. CRP between the hip and knee joints decreased ($93.0{\pm}7.8$ vs, $84.7{\pm}4.9$, p < 0.05). Most of CRP standard deviation increased (between the hip and ankle joint during swing: $25.1{\pm}6.7$ vs. $32.4{\pm}1.9$, between the knee and ankle joint during stance: $46.0{\pm}12.9$ vs. $80.1{\pm}31.1$, between the knee and ankle joint during swing: $34.5{\pm}4.1$ vs. $37.6{\pm}3.1$, all p < 0.05). These results indicated that wearing knee brace affected joint angle and intra-limb coordination, but less affected gait features.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Therapy
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.73-84
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• 2018

Objective : The purpose of this study was to promote R&D of toilet design for the disabled by evaluating the Front-entry sitting toilet applied it to actual wheelchair users to examine the possibility of their application as a toilet that is low physical demanding and high satisfaction. Methods : Forty wheelchair users were asked to demonstrate using Front-entry sitting toilet after collecting the general characteristics and their current wheelchair usage information. Musculoskeletal disease risk assessment and user satisfaction were evaluated throughout Rapid Entire Body Assessment(REBA), Quebec Evaluation of Satisfaction with assistive Technology 2.0(QUEST) and subjective opinion questionnaire. Results : Statistical result showed that REBA scores($3.18{\pm}.38$) of Front-Entry Sitting Toilet were significantly lower(z=-5.930, p<.05) than the conventional toilet($6.53{\pm}1.15$). Overall, user satisfaction ratings were high with detailed scores were high in order of durability($4.48{\pm}.62$), safety($4.38{\pm}.63$), necessity($4.33{\pm}.73$) and universal ($4.6{\pm}.61$). Subjective opinion survey showed most were 'it was convenient to not have to rotate(30.8%).' Conclusion : This study found that Front-entry sitting toilet was highly likely to reduce the risk of musculoskeletal disorders and users' satisfactions were high. Through this study, we hope to expand the scope of occupational therapists and contribute to the physical, mental and social health in the daily activities of the people by applying various approaches.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.744-750
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• 2013

This study is to collect a basic data of how Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) procedure can influence to cardiac arrest patient with and without the Depth Device during the average transport time period. The data has achieved by comparing result sheet of CPR procedure by hands only versus with Depth Device by twenty 1st and 2nd class Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) from five different fire stations in city of Chong-Ju, and twenty Emergency Rescue major students who completed the BLS provide course. The experiment participators experienced loss of compression depth and rate increase over time. However, the CPR procedure with Depth Device shows that both EMT and students to allow maintaining both the compression depth and rate. The experiment leaves a positive result for CPR operators and considers being valuable domain for cardiac arrest patient.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.617-624
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• 2015

This paper describes the development of a wearable robot to assist the elbow muscle for use by elderly workers in aging societies. Various previously developed wearable robots have drawbacks in terms of their price, portability, and slow recognition of the wearer's intention. In this paper, emphasis is placed on the following features to minimize these drawbacks. The first feature is that an actuator is attached only at the elbow joint that withstands the highest moment during arm motion to reduce the weight, volume, and price of the robot and increase its practicality. The second is that operation of the wearable robot is divided into two modes, a tracking mode and a muscle strengthening mode, and the robot can automatically switch between these modes by analyzing the wearer's intention through the brachial muscle strength measuring device developed in this study. The assistive performance of the developed wearable robot is experimentally verified by motion tracking experiments without an external load and muscle strengthening experiments with an external load. During the muscle strengthening experiments, the power of the muscle of the upper arm is measured by a commercial electromyography (EMG) sensor. Motion tracking performance at a speed of $120^{\circ}/s$ and muscle assistance of over 60 % were obtained using our robot.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.15-24
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• 2014

In 2005, there was a partial revision of the Act on the Promotion of Education for the Handicapped people, so that students with health impairments would be able to receive special education support. Since the amendment of the bill, to support them classified into weak people in education, education support systems have been proposed and settled so that they may receive the support for free. According to the pre-study, after the amendment of this bill, there has been many studies on the form of educational service to support them, and recently, there have been a lot of researches to investigate their satisfaction with the current services and draw its problems. And yet these studies have been carried out by the preceeding researchers at the drawing of problems, but have a limitation to present fundamental countermeasures to the problems. Therefore, this study attempted to understand the meaning of health impairment through the pre-study and investigate the forms of the services currently supporting them and analyze the problem of each service. In addition, to solve the identified problems, a new support system was proposed. In order to confirm the performance of the system, we design the user satisfaction survey composed of a Likert 5-point scale per each question, and to make the task, comparing stories and clapping for increasing quality of their subjective evaluation about the image and voice transmission when the user uses it. As a result, in the overall evaluation of the robot system, the average score of each question was recorded to 4.31 points, and through the two tasks, it was found that there were effective data transmission of image and voice.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.533-539
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• 2024

This study investigated the effects of two exercise programs, which include exercise methods to increase muscle strength, balance, and endurance, on the balance ability and fall efficacy of elderly people, and the differences in effects according to preference. Twenty-one elderly people were divided into a group using assistive devices using elastic bands (Experimental Group 1) and a group using the body (Experimental Group 2) and an exercise program was conducted for 4 weeks. The single leg stand (SLS) and functional reach test (FRT) were used to evaluate the elderly's balance ability, and the fall efficacy scale (FES) was used to evaluate the degree of fear of falling. A pre-evaluation was conducted after a 2-week integrated exercise program, and a post-evaluation was conducted after applying the exercise program for 4 weeks. In the study results, within-group SLS, FRT, and FES analyzes all showed statistically significant improvement in the post-assessment compared to the pre-assessment. However, there were no significant differences in the comparison between groups regarding exercise program and between groups according to preference. In conclusion, in order to increase the balance ability and fall efficacy of the elderly, an exercise program must be applied, and it is necessary to use a program that is easy to apply and includes exercise methods that the elderly can easily perform.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.217-226
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• 2010

The lower limb orthosis with a pneumatic rubber actuator, which is intended for the assistance and the enhancement of muscular activities of lower limbs was developed in this study. Compared to other knee extension assistive devices being developed by other researchers, our device is designed especially for the elderly people and intended only for slight assistance so that the subjects can keep their muscular strength. For the effectiveness of system, muscular activities of major muscles in lower limbs during sit-to-stand (STS) and squat motion were measured and analyzed. Subjects were performed the STS and squat motion with and without lower limb orthosis. We made comparison muscular activities between with and without lower limb orthosis. Lower limb orthosis was controlled using muscular stiffness force feedback that is controlled by muscular activities of the measured muscle from force sensor. For analysis of muscular activities, electromyography of the subjects was measured during STS and squat motion, and these were measured using MP 150(BIOPAC Systems, Inc.). Muscles of interest were rectus femoris(RF), vastus lateralis(VL), vastus medialis(VM) and vastus intermedius(VI) muscles in lower limbs of the right side. A biodex dynamometer was used to measure the maximal concentric isokinetic strength of the knee extensors of wearing and not wearing orthosis on right side. The test were performed using the concentric isokinetic mode of test with the velocity set at 60°/s for muscles around the knee joints. The experimental result showed that muscular activities in lower limbs wearing orthosis using muscular stiffness force of a vastus medialis muscle was reduced and knee extension torque of an knee joint wearing lower limb orthosis was increased. With this, we confirmed the effectiveness of the developed lower limb orthosis.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.61-81
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• 2002

The purposes of this research were to investigate home care rehabilitation services in rural areas and to collect basic data about disabled persons necessary when for carrying out rehabilitation services. Respondents were selected from six of a total of eight townships (Myon) and one town (Eup) in the Wonju city area. Wonju is in Kangwon Province (Do). Of a total of 338 names provided by the Myon offices, 298 persons were located and included registered and non-registered persons. Conditions included stroke, spinal cord injury, and cerebral palsy in addition to disabilities classified as first, second or third degree, in the case of registered cases. Respondent demographic characteristics, medical characteristics, rehabilitation service needs, willingness to receive rehabilitation service and individual opinions regarding rehabilitation services were analysed by frequency and percentage. The results were as follows: 1) Rehabilitation services received by disabled persons living at home in the rural areas surrounding Wonju city were medical rehabilitation (41.7%), diagnosis (36.5%), rehabilitation assistive devices (7.6%), social assistance (7.1%), rehabilitation counseling (3.0%), vocational rehabilitation (1.8%), educational rehabilitation (1.6%) and housekeeping services (0.5%). The majority of rehabilitation services were medical rehabilitation provided at hospitals and oriental medicine hospitals. 2) Sixty point eight percent of respondents expressed their willingness to receive home care rehabilitation services. Needs expressed were highest for medical rehabilitation (27.0%), followed by social assistance (19.4%), medical examination (12.4%), physician-generated diagnosis in the home setting (11.6%), sociopsychological rehabilitation (9.3%), vocational rehabilitation (7.6%), rehabilitation engineering (6.0%), educational rehabilitation (3.3%), and housekeeping services (3.3%). 3) Rehabilitation service needs were analyzed by severity classification: 65.8% of first degree, 62.7% of second degree and 55.6% of third degree disability classification, and 62.7% of non-registered disabled individuals responded that rehabilitation service was necessary. 4) Rehabilitation service needs were also analyzed by diagnosis: 62.6% of stroke, 85.5% of amputation, 60.0% of spinal cord injury and 52.4% of traumatic brain injury respondents answered positively that they were willing to receive rehabilitation service if it were to be provided. Rehabilitation service utilization data of disabled individuals living at home in rural areas were investigated and their rehabilitation needs analyzed. This critical information can be used when community-based rehabilitation programs for disabled persons living at home are planned for provision out of a public health center or when community-based rehabilitation welfare policy is formulated.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.105-114
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• 2020

Background: Exploring the pharmacokinetic (PK) changes of various active components of single herbs and their combinations is necessary to elucidate the compatibility mechanism. However, the lack of chemical standards and low concentrations of multiple active ingredients in the biological matrix restrict PK studies. Methods: A putative multiple reaction monitoring strategy based on liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (LC-MS) was developed to extend the PK scopes of quantification without resorting to the use of chemical standards. First, the compounds studied, including components with available reference standard (ARS) and components lacking reference standard (LRS), were preclassified to several groups according to their chemical structures. Herb decoctions were then subjected to ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry analysis with appropriate collision energy (CE) in MS² mode. Finally, multiple reaction monitoring transitions transformed from MS² of ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry were used for ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry to obtain the mass responses of LRS components. LRS components quantification was further performed by developing an assistive group-dependent semiquantitative method. Results: The developed method was exemplified by the comparative PK process of single herbs Radix Ginseng (RG), Radix Polygala (RP), and their combinations (RG-RP). Significant changes in PK parameters were observed before and after combination. Conclusion: Results indicated that Traditional Chinese Medicine combinations can produce synergistic effects and diminish possible toxic effects, thereby reflecting the advantages of compatibility. The proposed strategy can solve the quantitative problem of LRS and extend the scopes of PK studies.