• Industry Promotion Research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.59-69
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• 2020

Recognizing the importance of early childhood education, the government is preparing measures at the national level, including expanding the scope of free education for infants, linking early childhood education to elementary schools, unifying the system in charge of early childhood education, printing the cost of operating a full-time system for double-income couples, and policies for low-income infants. In Korea's childcare policy, the need for childcare has increased due to the increase of free double-income couples, the increase of nuclear families, and the increase of divorce rates. Despite the overall increase in the child care budget, Korea's child care policy shows many problems in its efficiency due to the burden of childcare facilities and childcare fees for caregivers. After looking into the theoretical contents of the free childcare policy and the corresponding child care support policy, we would like to consider ways to improve the free childcare policy.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.407-422
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• 2014

Objective: The purpose of the study is to develop quantitative usability evaluation criteria for senior-friendly autonomous transportation robot. Background: The Republic of Korea has become the most rapidly aging society, and is anticipated to enter the post-aged society in 2026. To raise the quality of life of a senior with limited mobility and to reduce the burden of caregivers, many high-tech assistive products with information technologies are developed nowadays. The senior-friendly autonomous transportation robot is one person robot vehicle to move a senior to the destination for hospitals, nursing homes or silver town complex. With built-in navigation system and environmental monitoring censors, it automatically seeks the path to the destination and avoids collision to obstacles and pedestrians on the way. Due to the early stage of the product, few usability studies in this field have been done, mostly on general service robots to assist seniors, power wheelchairs and delivery robots. ISO and KS standards for the service robots are focused on safety. Method: Based on the reference usability index, the early draft of the usability evaluation questionnaires was developed. After small group tests and interviews, the experts modified the initial draft to the Usability Evaluation Criteria for Senior-Friendly Autonomous Transportation Robot (UEC-SFATR). Result: UEC-SFATR consisted of 4 subscales - Safety, Controllability, Efficiency and Satisfaction. All of the 4 subscales of UEC-SFATR were passed the reliability criteria by 4 groups of seniors, divided by gender and familiarity of smart-devices. Conclusion: UEC-SFATR covers wider area of user experiences of the SFATR and is a good measurement tool to help both the users and developers of the robot. Application: This study provides guide to the future product development and product competitiveness evaluation by quantifying user experiences for the SFATR.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.60 no.8
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• pp.254-260
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• 2017

Purpose: Seasonal influenza can be prevented by vaccination. Disease prevention in children aged <60 months is of particular importance because of the associated familial and societal burden. Considering that caretakers make the decision to vaccinate their children, the identification of drivers and barriers to vaccination is essential to increase influenza vaccination coverage. Methods: A total of 639 parents participated in the pre- and posteducational survey and 450 parents participated in the study via telephone interviews. The participating parents were asked to rank their agreement with each statement of the survey questionnaire on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), and the scores between pre- and postintervention were compared. Results: Before the educational intervention, 105 out of 639 participants reported not to agree to vaccinate their children against influenza. After the intervention, 46 out of the 105 parents changed their opinions about childhood vaccination. The physicians' recommendation received the highest agreement score and was the most important driver to vaccination, whereas the cost of vaccination was the strongest factor for not vaccinating children. In general, the participants significantly changed the agreement scores between pre- and postintervention. However, the unfavorable opinions about vaccination and the convenience of receiving the influenza vaccine did not change significantly. Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that a specific educational intervention involving caregivers is very effective in increasing the influenza vaccination coverage of children aged less than 60 months.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.375-386
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to identify the present use of caregiver services, to evaluate the degree of satisfaction with the services according to type of caregiver service, private or public, and to provide data for the development of a plan which will provide good quality service with less economic and psychological burden to the patients and their families. Survey data were collected from 130 patients in 4 general hospitals in Seoul, and their families. Data were collected during April, 2004, using a questionnaire which included the patient satisfaction scale developed by Jun (2001). Data were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations, $X^2$ analysis, t-test. The SPSS computer program was used to facilitate analysis. The results of this study are summarized as follows; The total score for satisfaction was high for both groups. For the private caregiver group it was $52.38{\pm}11.08$, and for the public caregiver group, $58.14{\pm}9.64$. This difference was significant(t=-3.391, p=.001). In all of areas, the scores for satisfaction of the public caregiver service group were higher than private caregiver service group, ie. caregivers' attitude, role, confidence, performance, and service charge, and all the differences were significant. In conclusion, it was found that long-term hospitalization of older patients with high dependence resulted in more caregiver service. There were more severe patients in the public caregiver group, but the service charges, additional costs and paid holidays were less. Based on these results, patients and their families were significantly more satisfied with public caregiver service because it was not only less expensive but also had a high quality of service. Thus, caregiver services should be systemized so that patients and their families will get the best quality caregiver service

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.115-120
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• 2019

Hemiplegic patients who suffered from a stroke struggle with a deterioration in upper limb functions, which can both be psychologically and physically discomforting; this can also limit patients' daily tasks involving any upper limb motions. In this study, we developed an assistive device for hemiplegic patients to improve their upper limb functions. It was manufactured to train patients by using their grip strength and the range of motion of the arm. Furthermore, we produced game contents in virtual reality to induce users' immersion and interaction. It was configured as a multi-player game to help ease the mental burden of receiving the training alone, hence allowing the patient and the caregiver to join the rehabilitation training simultaneously. The assistive device and game contents developed in this study enables patients and caregivers to easily check the degree of improvements in upper limb function by viewing quantitative analysis and visualized results.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.121-133
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• 2022

Purpose: This study examined the impact of a virtual reality intervention program based on psychological needs on behavioral and psychological symptoms, apathy, and quality of life (QOL) in patients with dementia or mild cognitive impairment living in nursing facilities. Methods: This study is nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design of quasi-experimental study. The study collected data from November 18, 2020 to July 24, 2021 from patients with dementia or mild cognitive impairment (30 in the experimental group and 30 in the control group) at three nursing facilities in G city using self-reporting and caregiver-informant reporting methods. The analysis employed the chi-square test, Fisher's exact test, paired t-test, independent t-test, Wilcoxon signed rank test, Mann-Whitney U, repeated measures ANOVA, GEE, using SPSS/WIN 27.0. Results: The severity of behavioral and psychological symptoms (Wald 𝛘² = 2.68, p = .102) and the care burden of caregivers (Wald 𝛘² = 1.72, p = .190) were not significant and was no significant time and group interaction effect (Wald 𝛘² = 0.63, p = .426, Wald 𝛘² = 0.52, p =. 471). The difference in apathy and QOL score were statistically significant for the group-time interaction (F = 43.65, p < .001; F = 4.35, p = .041). Conclusion: The virtual reality intervention program of this study shows a positive effect on the apathy reduction and QOL of patients with dementia or mild cognitive impairment residing in nursing facilities.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.61 no.3
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• pp.304-309
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• 2023

Intestinal parasitic infections are a public health burden and a major cause of illness in developing countries. The diseases lead to various health threats, including growth retardation and mental health-related disorders, especially in children. We assessed the risk factors for intestinal parasitic infections among children aged 12-59 months residing in Nyamasheke District, Rwanda. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted using secondary data from 1,048 children aged 12-59 months whose stool samples were examined for the presence of intestinal parasites and whose results were registered in the laboratory information system in 2020. The prevalence of intestinal parasites in children aged 12-59 months was 53.2%. The dominant parasites were Ascaris lumbricoides (13.1%), followed by Giardia lamblia (10.9%), Entamoeba histolytica (7.9%), Trichuris trichiura (6.5%), hookworms (1.7%), and Taenia species (1.4%). A significant association was observed between intestinal parasites and the literacy of mothers or children's caregivers (odds ratio (OR)=5.09, P<0.001). Children from farming households were 2.8-fold more likely to contract intestinal parasitic infections than those from nonfarming households (OR=2.8, P<0.001). A significant association was also observed between intestinal parasites and food safety (OR=4.9, P<0.001). Intestinal parasitic infections were significantly associated with hand hygiene practices after using the toilet and washing fresh fruits before eating (P<0.001). The information gathered will help public health providers and partners develop control plans in highly endemic areas in Rwanda.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.133-144
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• 2020

The number of elderly people with dementia is increasing as fast as the proportion of older people due to aging, which creates a social and economic burden. In particular, dementia care costs, including indirect costs such as increased care costs due to lost caregiver hours and caregivers, have grown exponentially over the years. In order to reduce these costs, it is urgent to introduce a management system to care for dementia patients. Therefore, this study proposes a sensor-based abnormal behavior detection system to manage dementia patients who live alone or in an environment where they cannot always take care of dementia patients. Existing studies were merely evaluating behavior or evaluating normal behavior, and there were studies that perceived behavior by processing images, not data from sensors. In this study, we recognized the limitation of real data collection and used both the auto-encoder, the unsupervised learning model, and the LSTM, the supervised learning model. Autoencoder, an unsupervised learning model, trained normal behavioral data to learn patterns for normal behavior, and LSTM further refined classification by learning behaviors that could be perceived by sensors. The test results show that each model has about 96% and 98% accuracy and is designed to pass the LSTM model when the autoencoder outlier has more than 3%. The system is expected to effectively manage the elderly and dementia patients who live alone and reduce the cost of caring.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.8 no.11
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• pp.353-361
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to provide basic data to confirm the necessity and effectiveness of the memory school by investigating the perception of users and caregivers about the services and programs provided by the memory school, a social welfare institution for the elderly with minor dementia. For this purpose, 363 students and students in Daegu City were surveyed about the satisfaction and attitude of using memory school. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the use of the memory school is very helpful to the users, and at the same time, it is very meaningful for the decrease of the caregiver burden of the caregiver. Thus, it can be seen that the memory school has the effect of appropriately matching the installation purpose of the facility. In particular, it was found that the degree of satisfaction with the program level, type of service, and future sustainability of the memory school exceeded 90%. Therefore, this study aims to provide policy implications for the social welfare response for the elderly with mild dementia and for the basic data on the memory school for this purpose.

• Therapeutic Science for Rehabilitation
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.56-68
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• 2020

Objective : This study introduces domestic and overseas systematic assessment tools that can identify eating problems of dementia patients based on abnormal behavior observations and turns them into Korean through the verification of content placement by expert groups. Methods : Three types of assessment tools were selected for final development in Korean version through several meetings based on a wide range of relevant literature searches. The 3 selected assessment tools were first translated by the researchers, and a 9-person expert team was used to verify the Content Validity Index. Results : The EBS content equivalence calculation shows that all 6 questions and 1 response item had a CVI value 0.9, and all items were included in Korean EBS without modification. The EdFED content equivalence calculation showed that all 11 questions had CVI value 0.9, which was included in the Korean edition of EdFED without modification. The content equivalence calculation of the FDI showed that all 19 questions had a CVI of 0.8 or higher, and all items were included in the Korean version of the FDI without modification of the item. Conclusion : Korean versions of the EBS, EdFED and FDI, which are based on behavioral observation and diet tools for people with dementia, have been developed. Early determination of problems related to diet in dementia patients and providing proper intervention through observational Korean version assessment tools is vital in terms of strengthening patient nutrition and reducing caregivers' burden.