• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.62 no.4
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• pp.325-347
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• 2010

To provide a satisfactory life for the elderly females who are the most impoverished among the elderly social strata, this study is geared towards, and focused on, the exploration on their attitudes towards death. For the purpose of this study, in-depth interviews with females aged 65 and over, who are officially classified as the beneficiary of national fundamental livelihood security, have been conducted. Then, the results from these interviews have been compiled and analyzed through qualitative research methods. As a result of this research, the attitudes of the destitute elderly females towards death are categorized into several themes, such as 'Feeling close to the death through a hard life', 'Positive acceptance of the death', 'Relying on funeral services from government and religious organization', 'Hoping for a death with dignity'. The attitudes of death means to them that 'they can get out of a hard life', and elderly female beneficiaries were positive in their acceptance of this meaning. Those who could obtain funeral services as a part of assistance from government and a religious organization did not feel stressful about their funeral arrangements. However, there were individuals who didn't know if their funeral services would be covered by the government. They were unsure if a funeral service would be held for them, or they would have nobody to hold a funeral for them. Accordingly, they were worried about that. The poor elderly females were unhealthy and indigent, and so, they had death anxiety. Therefore, based on the study results above, some ideas regarding elderly welfare are proposed to enable poor elderly females to face their deaths with dignity.

• Journal of Computing Science and Engineering
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.246-256
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• 2011

Due to the increasingly aging population, there is a rising demand for assistive living technologies for the elderly to ensure their health and well-being. The elderly are mostly chronic patients who require frequent check-ups of multiple vital signs, some of which (e.g., blood pressure and blood glucose) vary greatly according to the daily activities that the elderly are involved in. Therefore, the development of novel wearable intelligent systems to effectively monitor the vital signs continuously over a 24 hour period is in some cases crucial for understanding the progression of chronic symptoms in the elderly. In this paper, recent development of Wearable Intelligent Systems for e-Health (WISEs) is reviewed, including breakthrough technologies and technical challenges that remain to be solved. A novel application of wearable technologies for transient cardiovascular monitoring during water drinking is also reported. In particular, our latest results found that heart rate increased by 9 bpm (P < 0.001) and pulse transit time was reduced by 5 ms (P < 0.001), indicating a possible rise in blood pressure, during swallowing. In addition to monitoring physiological conditions during daily activities, it is anticipated that WISEs will have a number of other potentially viable applications, including the real-time risk prediction of sudden cardiovascular events and deaths.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2012

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate whether a medium to high degree of total physical activity and indoor physical activity were associated with reduced all-cause and cardiovascular mortality among elderly Korean women. Methods: A prospective cohort study was done to evaluate the association between physical activity and mortality. The cohort was made up of elderly (${\geq}65$ years of age) subjects. Baseline information was collected with a self-administered questionnaire and linked to death certificates retrieved from a database. Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate the hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence interval (CI) levels. Results: Women who did not suffer from stroke, cancer, or ischemic heart disease were followed for a median of 8 years (n=5079). A total of 1798 all-cause deaths were recorded, of which 607 (33.8%) were due to cardiovascular disease. The group with the highest level of total physical activity and indoor physical activity was significantly associated to a reduced all-cause mortality (HR, 0.60; 95% CI, 0.51 to 0.71 and HR, 0.58; 95% CI, 0.50 to 0.67, respectively) compared to the group with the lowest level of total physical activity and indoor physical activity. Additionally, the group with the highest level of total physical activity and indoor physical activity was significantly associated to a lower cardiovascular disease mortality (HR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.40 to 0.71 and HR, 0.51; 95% CI, 0.39 to 0.67, respectively) compared to the group with the lowest level of total physical activity and indoor physical activity. Conclusions: Our study showed that regular indoor physical activity among elderly Korean women has healthy benefits.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.123-136
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• 2009

Sodium is a necessary element for the body. Excessive intake of sodium is known as one of the risk factors for chronic diseases. Recently, increasing numbers of people in Korea are suffering from chronic diseases. Major causes of deaths were chronic degenerative disease with the rising aging population. Especially, the population of rural areas is growing older fast. In rural areas, it is known that under nutrition and high sodium intake were major nutritional problems. For sodium intake, there were some studies about contributing food items. They were not enough to show diets relate to sodium intakes. Thus, this study analyzed dishes contributing to sodium intakes of elderly living in rural areas. Dietary intakes using "the 24hour recall method" were used. For the analysis for sodium intakes, "Can-pro3.0" was used. Ranking of dishes by contributions of sodium intakes were Korean cabbage, kimchi (19.6%), seasoned soybean paste (5.3%), soybean paste (4.6%), soybean paste soup dried radish leaves (3.5%), hot pork and kimchi stew (3.4%) in order. Ranking of dish groups by sodium intakes was kimchies (28.3%), soup and hot soups (22.8%), stews and casseroles (9.7%), seasonings (8.2%),and seasoned vegetables (6.0%) in order. One-dish meals among cooked rice, wheat noodles among noodle and mandu, soups using the soybean paste, stews using soybean paste and kimchi, salted fish among grilled foods, stir-fried anchovy among stir-fried foods, seasoned spinach, and Korean cabbage kimchi contributed to sodium intakes. As the nutrition deficiency of the elderly living in rural areas could be a problem, and excessive sodium intakes is threatening to their health, it is needed for the senior citizens to have adequate knowledge for diets containing less sodium. And recipes for healthy food and nutrition education based on their diets are needed.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.157-160
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• 2007

Objective : The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the surgical treatment for lumbar spinal stenosis in elderly patients. Methods : The authors reviewed the medical records of 49 patients older than 65 years of age with lumbar spinal stenosis who underwent surgical treatment from January 2002 to December 2004 in our institute. Results : Average age of patients was 70 years old [32 women, 17 men]. Twenty-four patients had chronic medical disorders. All patients were operated under the general anesthesia of these, 29 patients underwent decompressive laminectomy and decompressive laminectomy with instrumentation and fusion in 20 patients. The mean operation time was 193.5 minutes, mean estimated blood loss was 378cc and mean postoperative hospital stay length was 15.3 days. The mean follow-up duration was 11.9 months. The evaluation of outcome was assessed by Macnab classification. At first month after operation, the outcome showed excellent in 7 [14.3%]. good in 35 [71.4%], fair in 5 [10.2%], and poor in 2 [4.1%]. And at 6 months after operation, 17 patients were lost in follow-up, the outcome showed excellent in 4 [12.5%], good in 25 [78.1%], fair in 3 [9.4%], and no poor cases. There was no significant difference between outcome of laminectomy alone and that of laminectomy with fusion. Six patients [12.2%] experienced postoperative complications which included wound infection [3], nerve root injury [1], disc herniation [1], and reoperation due to insufficient decompression [1]. There were no deaths related to operation. Conclusion : We conclude that the surgical treatment for lumbar spinal stenosis in elderly patients can provide good results with acceptable morbidity when carefully selected. In addition, decision on lumbar spinal fusion should not be against solely on advanced age.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.270-278
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• 2019

This study is a preliminary survey to determine the desired demanding well-dying education requirements for subjects aged 65 years or older according to their family's death experience. The results of this study report that all subjects needed well-dying education regardless of their family's death experience. In addition, 71.8% of those who had experienced family deaths said they needed education. On the other hand, 40% of those with no family deaths said that education was needed. Both groups responded as needing well-dying education based on the meaning of death and value of life. Groups with family death experiences hoped to include 'how to overcome sadness related to the death of family and friends' and 'information about organ or body donation procedures'. Both groups responded that 1 week was appropriate for the duration of well-dying education, and that the lectures and discussions were appropriate for the education method. In the future, well-dying education will require sustainable education, not one-offs, and education for the family as well as the elderly.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.113-124
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• 2002

This study has been performed to explore conveniences and inconveniences of daily lives in rural residential care facilities among the elderly residents. In this study, five males and seven females aged 68 to 78 were asked about socio-familial and physical aspects of their daily lives in the facilities such as meals, social activities, family visits, recreation, and health care. The answers of the qualitative interview were drawn as follow; first, the residents perceived well planned regular meals and snacks, free visits of friends, regularly supervised daily sanitary activities, periodic outdoor activities, education programs provided by religious experts, and pastoral farming lives as most convenient aspects of the retirement facilities. In addition, some felt that facility life made them free of familial conflicts, while others appealed fear of being forgotten because of distant location. On the other hand, they perceived the supervised group activities and meals as major inconveniences. They also felt persistently depressed when closely observing serious illness or deaths of their co-residents. Therefore in this study, suggestions were made as follows: first, combination of normal family life and retirement facility should be developed in the mixed form of community welfare center and shared home. Second, intensive medical care facilities should be in collaboration with the retirement facilities, so that the residents are relieved from stressful contacts with extremely ill patients in the residential area.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.349-354
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• 2019

Workers who die from falls at construction sites account for about 40 percent of the total number of deaths and are the main forms of accidents. In addition, as the nation's population structure is gradually aging, the rate of aging is increasing at construction sites, and the number of crashes due to decreased physical function and cognitive ability is increasing. Accordingly, we conducted a survey on the factors affecting the fall of older workers and would like to present more fundamental measures to prevent falls, focusing on older workers who are the victims of the disaster.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.616-624
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• 2020

This study analyzed the association between the type of transport accident and the associated mortality of elderly inpatients. The findings will contribute to the development and establishment of a systematic and effective policy according to the type of transport accident to reduce the mortality of inpatients. The data on elderly inpatients with transport accidents was extracted from the 2013-2017 Korean National Hospital Discharge In-depth Survey dataset. The data was analyzed by descriptive statistics analysis, chi-square tests and multiple logistic regression analysis. After adjustment for sociodemographic, disease, injury and policy factors, the elderly inpatient deaths due to transport accidents were significantly higher for pedestrian accidents (OR: 2.522 95%, CI: 1.291-4.972), bicycle/cart accidents (OR: 2.809, 95% CI: 1.328-5.942) and motorcycle accidents (OR: 2.330, 95% CI: 1.226-4.819) rather than that for car accidents. Likewise, elderly inpatients have a higher risk of death from other types of transport accidents than those caused by car accidents. However, Korean policies related to transport accidents of elderly inpatients are concentrated on car accidents. Effective policy is needed according to the characteristics of each type of transport accident to reduce the transport accident mortality of elderly inpatients.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.1567-1574
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• 2014

The incidence and mortality rates of liver and nasopharyngeal cancer in Guangxi province of China have always been among the highest in the world, and cancer is one of the major diseases that pose a threat to the health of residents in Guangxi. However, no systematic study has been performed to evaluate the time trends in the structure of cancer-related deaths and cancer mortality. In this study, we reveal sex, age and geography differences of cancers mortality between three death surveys (1971 to 1973, 1990 to 1992, and 2004 to 2005). The results show that the standardized mortality rate of cancer in Guangxi residents has risen from 43.3/100,000 to 84.2/100,000, the share of cancer deaths in all-cause deaths has increased from 13.3% to 20.7%, and cancer has become the second most common cause of death. The five major cancers, liver cancer, lung cancer, gastric cancer, nasopharyngeal cancer and colorectal cancer, account for 60% of all the cancer deaths. Cancers with growing mortality rates over the past 30 years include lung cancer, colorectal cancer, liver cancer and female breast cancer, of which lung cancer is associated with the sharpest rise in mortality, with a more than 600% rise in both men and women. Cancer death in Guangxi residents occurs mainly in the elderly population above 45 years of age, especially in people over the age of 65. The areas with the highest mortality rates for liver cancer and nasopharyngeal cancer, which feature regional high incidences, include Chongzuo and Wuzhou. Therefore, for major cancers such as liver cancer, lung cancer, gastric cancer, nasopharyngeal cancer and female breast cancer in Guangxi, we can select high-risk age groups as the target population for cancer prevention and control efforts in high-prevalence areas in a bid to achieve the ultimate goal of lowering cancer mortality in Guangxi.