• Journal of Oriental Neuropsychiatry
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.47-58
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• 2019

Objectives: To conduct and report the results of a public health promotion program in Korean medicine (KM), namely the KM Visiting Care Service for Solitary Elderly, from November 2018 to April 2019. Methods: Six elderly people living in a rural area received the KM visiting care service, twice a week, for four months. This service consisted of acupuncture, auriculotherapy, and supportive counseling to manage their musculoskeletal pain, cognitive impairment, and/or depression. The changes of symptoms were assessed using Numeric Rating Scale (NRS), Korean version of Mini-Mental State Examination for Dementia Screening (MMSE-DS), Korean version of Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA-K), and Geriatric Depression Scale-Short form Korean (GDS-SF-K). Results: Through the 4-months KM visiting care service, the overall subjects' NRS-rated pain decreased slightly. Most showed improvement in MMSE-DS and/or MoCA-K, except one subject who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Depression assessed by GDS-SF-K showed improvement in a few subjects who were unable to walk independently. Satisfaction assessed through survey was generally high in all subjects. Conclusions: This KM Visiting Care Service for Solitary Elderly may help improve the pain and cognitive function of frail solitary elderly in rural areas. However, the protocol need to be improved to optimize the effect.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.249-259
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• 2016

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of auricular acupressure on reducing obesity in adult women with abdominal obesity. Methods: The study design was a non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest design. Participants were 58 women, aged 20 years or older, assigned to the experimental group (n=30) or control group (n=28). Auricular acupressure using vaccaria seeds was administered to the experimental group. The sessions continued for 8 weeks. Outcome measures included body weight, abdominal circumference, and body mass index, body fat mass, body fat percentage, triglyceride, total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein cholesterol, high density lipoprotein cholesterol, and serum glucose. Results: Women in the experimental group showed significant decreases in body weight (t=6.19, p<.001), abdominal circumference (t=4.01, p<.001), and body mass index (t=2.58, p=.006) after 8 weeks compared with those in the control group. Conclusion: Results show that auricular acupressure using vaccaria seeds was effective in decreasing body weight, abdominal circumference, body mass index, and triglyceride levels in adult women with abdominal obesity.

• Korean Journal of Acupuncture
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.616-622
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• 2012

Objectives : The objective of this study was to evaluate the correlation between earlobe crease(ELC) and Hypertension(HTN) in the auricular point diagnosis. Methods : 140 patients who were admitted the Jeongeup City Geriatric Hospital were examined for the presence or absence of ELC and HTN. The one examined the ELC of patients and the other examined the presence of hypertension. The presence of right ELC, left ELC, right or left ELC, and right and left ELC were respectively compared with the presence of HTN. Chi-square test was used to analyze the correlation between ELC and HTN. Results : The presence of right ELC was significantly related to presence of HTN(p=0.001). The sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictability of ELC for diagnosis of HTN were 0.755, 0.524, 0.787, and 0.478. The presence of left ELC was significantly related to presence of HTN(p=0.002). The sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictability of ELC for diagnosis of HTN were 0.745, 0.524, 0.785, and 0.468. The presence of right or left ELC was significantly related to presence of HTN(p<0.001). The sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictability of ELC for diagnosis of HTN were 0.806, 0.500, 0.790, and 0.525. The presence of right and left ELCs was significantly related to presence of HTN (p=0.007). The sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictability of ELC for diagnosis of HTN were 0.694, 0.548, 0.782, and 0.434. Conclusions : These results show that the presence of ELC is significantly associated with hypertension.