• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.81 no.3
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• pp.676-687
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• 2020

Purpose To analyze the altered brain regions and intrinsic brain activity patterns in trauma-exposed firefighters without posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Materials and Methods Resting-state functional MRI (rsfMRI) was performed for all subjects. Thirty-one firefighters over 40 years of age without PTSD (31 men; mean age, 49.8 ± 4.7 years) were included. Twenty-six non-traumatized healthy controls (HCs) (26 men; mean age, 65.3 ± 7.84 years) were also included. Voxel-based morphometry was performed to investigate focal differences in the brain anatomy. Seed-based functional connectivity analysis was performed to investigate differences in spontaneous brain characteristics. Results The mean z-scores of the Seoul Verbal Learning Test for immediate and delayed recall, Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT) score for animals, and COWAT phonemic fluency were significantly lower in the firefighter group than in the HCs, indicating decreased neurocognitive function. Compared to HCs, firefighters showed reduced gray matter volume in the left superior parietal gyrus and left inferior temporal gyrus. Further, in contrast to HCs, firefighters showed alterations in rsfMRI values in multiple regions, including the fusiform gyrus and cerebellum. Conclusion Structural and resting-state functional abnormalities in the brain may be useful imaging biomarkers for identifying alterations in trauma-exposed firefighters without PTSD.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.10 no.9
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• pp.167-172
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of computer based cognitive rehabilitation program on the generative naming. Twenty - one patients were assigned to the CoTras program and eight were treated with traditional face - to - face language rehabilitation such as paper and table activities. The experimental group and the control group performed sequential language recall memory training, association memory recall training, language categorization memory training, and language integrated memory training for 12 weeks. The Welch's robust ANCOVA showed significant differences in mean fluency and MMSE-K changes (p<0.05). On the other hand, phonemic fluency increased significantly after 12 weeks of treatment compared to baseline in both experimental and control groups, but there was no statistically significant difference between treatment groups. The results of this study suggest that the computer based cognitive rehabilitation program may be more effective in improving the semantic fluency than the conventional cognitive-linguistic rehabilitation.