• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.747-755
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• 2010

Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate the degree of dry mouth and oral health-related quality of life and to identify factors contributing to oral health-related quality of life for community-dwelling elders. Methods: A descriptive correlational study design was used. Participants were 156 older adults from two senior welfare centers. Data were collected on February 21, 22 and 29, 30, 2009 using structured questionnaires. Enter type multiple regression analysis was used to identify factors influencing oral health-related quality of life according to general and oral health characteristics. Results: There were significant differences in oral health-related quality of life according to living arrangement, insurance, smoking, number of natural teeth, and denture type. The oral health-related quality of life had significant correlations with the number of chronic disease, number of medications, and dry mouth. Factors influencing oral health-related quality of life for community-dwelling older adults were dry mouth, number of chronic disease, and medical aid, which explained about 47.9% of total variance. Conclusion: These results indicate that in order to promote oral health-related quality of life for older adults, prevention or management of chronic diseases as well as oral health and dry mouth are needed for this population, and especially economically poor elders.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.49-57
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• 2022

Objective: This study aims to conduct a comprehensive review of monitoring systems to monitor and manage physical function of community-dwelling elderly living alone and suggest future directions of unobtrusive monitoring. Design: Literature review Methods: The importance of health-related monitoring has been emphasized due to the aging population and novel corona virus (COVID-19) outbreak.As the population gets old and because of changes in culture, the number of single-person households among the elderly is expected to continue to increase. Elders are staying home longer and their physical function may decline rapidly,which can be a disturbing factorto successful aging.Therefore, systematic elderly management must be considered. Results: Frequently used technologies to monitor elders at home included red, green, blue (RGB) camera, accelerometer, passive infrared (PIR) sensor, wearable devices, and depth camera. Of them all, considering privacy concerns and easy-to-use features for elders, depth camera possibly can be a technology to be adapted at homes to unobtrusively monitor physical function of elderly living alone.The depth camera has been used to evaluate physical functions during rehabilitation and proven its efficiency. Conclusions: Therefore, physical monitoring system that is unobtrusive should be studied and developed in the future to monitor physical function of community-dwelling elderly living alone for the aging population.

• PNF and Movement
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.93-103
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• 2016

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the factors that increase fall risk in the residential environment and the perceived fall risk among community-dwelling elderly through comparisons between fallers and non-fallers. Methods: The subjects were 95 community-dwelling elderly aged 65 years and over residing in the metropolitan city of Ulsan. A structured questionnaire consisting of items on sociodemographics and health- and fall-related characteristics was used and data were collected from July to August 2015. The data were analyzed with the SPSS/WIN program. Results: Among recent fallers, 38.9% had diagnosed diseases when the fall occurred, 56.87% were fearful of a recurrent fall, and 86.5% stated that they were increasing their carefulness but that had led to a decrease in activity. There were significant differences between elders who had fallen at least once and elders who had no falls in age, health status, depression, the experience of falling, fear of falling, diseases, and medications. Conclusion: The results indicate a need to assess risk factors to identify older adults with a high risk for falling and the need to develop multifactorial intervention programs that consider both environmental and perceived risk factors as well as physical risk factors to reduce and prevent falls among the elderly.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Fundamentals of Nursing
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.371-381
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• 2007

Purpose: This study was done to investigate the relationship of family function, self-esteem, life satisfaction, and general characteristics to loneliness in community dwelling Korean elders and identify factors affecting loneliness. Method: With a cross-sectional causal-relationship design and a convenience sample, 205 elders residing in three districts of the city of Seoul, S. Korea were recruited. Participants were assessed using the Family APGAR Score, Self-Esteem Scale, Life-Satisfaction Scale, and Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale. Results: The mean score for degree of loneliness (Mean=39.61, SD=10.09) was just below the mean for the scale (Possible range 20-80). Loneliness had significant negative correlations with family function (r= -.400, p<.001), self-esteem (r= -.399, p<.001), and life satisfaction (r= -.644, p<.001). Other general characteristics that had significant or nearly significant relationships with loneliness were perceived current financial and health status, whether doing any exercise or physical activities, degree of close relationship with family members, and length of living in current residence. Among variables, life satisfaction (Standardized ${\beta}\;=\;-.589$, p<.001) and length of living in current residence (Standardized ${\beta}\;=\;-.136$, p<.05) significantly predicted degree of loneliness. Conclusion: Findings of this study allow a comprehensive understanding of loneliness and related factors among community dwelling elders in Korea. However, further studies with a larger random sample from various living environments are necessary.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.12-25
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• 1999

This study examines individual determinants of hospital days in community-dwelling elders by estimating a linear structural equation model based upon Andersen's behavioral model. Data were collected through a national survey of elders in Korea in 1994. The subjects for this secondary data analysis were 1687 non-institutionalized elders aged 60 years or older. Except for the effect of age and gender on family help. the predisposing components had direct effects on the enabling components. Of the effects of the enabling components. family help had a direct effect on self-evaluated health; economic status had a direct effect on chronic disease and self-evaluated health; and access had a direct effect on chronic disease. functional health status and self-evaluated health. Of the enabling components. residence and family help directly affected hospital days. Self-evaluated health revealed the greatest direct effect on hospital days followed by functional health. Overall. the effects of the predisposing components and the enabling components on hospital days were not prominent. Since the model explained only $4\%$ of the variance in hospital days. the magnitude of the effect of the need components cannot be judged in terms of equity of distribution of health services. In particular. the effect of family help in the model reveals the importance of family support in health management of elders. The implications of these analyses for improving the proposed model of hospital days were discussed.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.302-313
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• 2013

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify factors in quality of life and to construct a model of quality of life in longevity region dwelling elders. Methods: Data were collected from January to July, 2010 through direct interviews and a self-reporting questionnaire survey with 171 subjects who were living at the S County (gun). The collected data were analyzed by using the SPSS/WIN 19.0 and AMOS 19.0 programs. Results: Economic status, social support, health behavior and depression were shown to have direct and total effects on quality of life and were statistically significant. Health status had indirect and total effects on quality of life and was statistically significant. And, self-efficacy had direct, indirect and total effects on quality of life and was statistically significant. These variables of the hypothetical model accounted for 41.4% of quality of life. Conclusion: In order to improve quality of life in longevity region dwelling elders, it is necessary to provide economic support and social support services in tandem with social welfare. And, we need to apply interventions strengthening self-efficacy, health behavior, and health status, and decreasing depression.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.405-414
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• 2015

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to examine the effects of home visit healthcare using a complex program on community-dwelling frail elders' physical strength, frailty, and depression and to compare the effects among three regions. Methods: This study was conducted as a quasi-experimental study using one-group pretest-posttest design. A total of 86 subjects were sampled from three regions (metropolis, small city, and rural area). The program was applied for 14 weeks. This program consisted of disease management by a visiting nurse, exercise with a visiting nurse, self exercise, telephone monitoring, health education, counseling, providing handbook, and incentive. Physical strength was measured by balance, upper-limb, and lower-limb muscle strength. Frailty was measured by the Korean Frail Scale and depression was measured by the Geriatric Depression Scale. Paired t-test and ANCOVA were used to analyze the effects. Results: Physical strength, frailty, and depression were significantly improved after applying the complex program. There were not differences among the regions. Conclusion: Home visit healthcare using a complex program was effective in improving frail elders' physical strength, frailty, and depression. There were not differences among the regions. Therefore, home visit healthcare using a complex program needs to be expanded to other regions.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.724-735
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• 2010

Purpose: In this study a cognitive enhancement group training program of 10 sessions was provided for communitydwelling elders and the effects on cognitive function, depression and quality of life were tested. Methods: A quasi-experimental study using a nonequivalent control group, pre-post design was used. The participants were 87 elders whose cognitive function was within the normal range. Of these elders, 45 were assigned to the experimental group and 42 to the control group. The intervention was conducted once a week for 10 weeks. Chi-square test, t-test, paired t-test, Wilcoxon rank sum test and Wilcoxon signed rank test were used to analyze the data. Results: After the program, the cognitive function (t=-2.85, p=.006), depression (z=2.82, p=.005) and quality of life (t=2.79, p=.007) of the experimental group was significantly better than those of the control group. Especially, immediate recall (z=2.45, p=.014) and concentration (z=2.58, p=.010) in the subcategory of cognitive function were significantly better than that of the control group. Conclusion: The findings indicate that the cognitive enhancement group training program was effective in enhancing the cognitive function, depression and quality of life for elders and could therefore be considered as a positive program for emotional and cognitive support for community-dwelling elders.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.104-110
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• 2013

Objectives : The aim of this study was to examine the prospective impact of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) ${\varepsilon}4$ on cognitive performance in the community-dwelling elderly individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Methods : The total number of subjects was 30 (12 men and 18 women) who were diagnosed with AD from a Korean project of "Early Detection of Dementia". People aged 65-85 years were included in the analysis. The eight neuropsychological domains from the Korean version of Consortium to Establish a Registry of Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD-K) were conducted to test subjects. They have been followed at 24-month intervals with the same assessments at each interval. Their cognitive performance at 2 year intervals was compared by the occurrence of the APOE ${\varepsilon}4$. Results : The impact of ${\varepsilon}4$ allele was significant in the Word List Memory Test (WLMT, F = 4.345, df = 1, p = 0.021) and Word List Recall Test (WLRT, F = 5.569, df = 1, p = 0.033). Conclusions : The APOE ${\varepsilon}4$ allele was significantly correlated especially with verbal episodic memory domain in community-dwelling elders diagnosed with AD.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.338-346
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• 2012

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the association between oral health impact profile, depression and quality of life among community-dwelling elderly persons in South Korea. Methods: The design of this research was cross-sectional descriptive study. The participants were 266 community-dwelling individuals aged 65 and older. Data were collected from November 20 to December 20, 2011. The measurements for assessing the subjects' oral health, depression, quality of life were OHIP-14, GDS-SF and QOL. Data were collected using self-administered or interviewer-administered questionnaires. Collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation coefficient and stepwise multiple regression. Results: The participants' mean age was 77.68, and 86.5% were female, 42.9% were living-alone elders. Pearson's correlation coefficient analysis found that oral health impact profile was significantly associated with depression (r=-.622, p<.001), QOL (r=-.400, p<.001), number of disease (r=.298, p<.001), age (r=.198, p=.002), education (r=-.149, p=.015), eating habit (r=.185, p=.003). The QOL was explained 54.7% by depression (${\beta}$=-.619), oral health impact profile (${\beta}$=-.127), number of benefited welfare service (${\beta}$=.235), perceived health (${\beta}$=-.327), eating habit (${\beta}$=-.094) using stepwise multiple regression analysis. Conclusion: These results indicate that the intervention program of oral health promotion for community-dwelling elders is needed from now on.