• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.141-148
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• 2011

Annual epidemics of seasonal influenza occur during autumn and winter in temperate regions and have imposed substantial public health and economic burdens. At the global level, these epidemics cause about 3-5 million severe cases of illness and about 0.25-0.5 million deaths each year. Although annual vaccination is the most effective way to prevent the disease and its severe outcomes, influenza vaccination coverage rates have been at suboptimal levels in many countries. For instance, the coverage rates among the elderly in 20 developed nations in 2008 ranged from 21% to 78% (median 65%). In the U.S., influenza vaccination levels among elderly population appeared to reach a "plateau" of about 70% after the late 1990s, and levels among child populations have remained at less than 50%. In addition, disparities in the coverage rates across subpopulations within a country present another important public health issue. New approaches are needed for countries striving both to improve their overall coverage rates and to eliminate disparities. This review article aims to describe a broad conceptual framework of vaccination, and to illustrate four potential determinants of influenza vaccination based on empirical analyses of U.S. nationally representative populations. These determinants include the ongoing influenza epidemic level, mass media reporting on influenza-related topics, reimbursement rate for providers to administer influenza vaccination, and vaccine supply. It additionally proposes specific policy implications, derived from these empirical analyses, to improve the influenza vaccination coverage rate and associated disparities in the U.S., which could be generalizable to other countries.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2017.10a
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• pp.185-188
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• 2017

Health promotion is essential for overcoming the low health longevity of senior citizens preparing for aging population. Therefore, the lower body strengthening exercise to prevent falls is crucial to prevent a fall in the number of deaths of senior citizens. In this game model, the elderly are aiming at home training contents that can be found to feel that the elderly are going out of walk and exercising in the natural environment. To achieve this, Kinect extracts a specific bone model provided by the Kinect Sensor to generate the feature vectors and recognizes the movements and motion of the user.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.601-606
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• 2015

Background: Prostate cancer is predominately a disease of older men, with a median age of diagnosis of 68 years and 71% of cancer deaths occurring in those over 75 years of age. While prostate cancer screening is not recommended for men >70 years, fit elderly men with controlled comorbidities may have a relatively long life expectancy. We compare the use of age related PSA with the detection of primary malignant circulating prostate cells mCPCs to detect clinically significant PC in this population. Materials and Methods: All men undergoing PC screening with a PSA >4.0ng/ml underwent TRUS 12 core prostate biopsy (PB). Age, PSA, PB results defined as cancer/no-cancer, Gleason, number of positive cores and percentage infiltration were registered. Men had an 8ml blood sample taken for mCPC detection; mononuclear cells were obtained using differential gel centrifugation and mCPCs were identified using immunocytochemistry with anti-PSA and anti-P504S. A mCPC was defined as a cell expressing PSA and P504S; a positive test as at least one mCPC detected/sample. Diagnostic yields for subgroups were calculated and the number of avoided PBs registered. Esptein criteria were used to define small grade tumours. Results: A total of 610 men underwent PB, 398 of whom were aged <70yrs. Men over 70 yrs had: a higher median PSA, 6.24ng/ml versus 5.59ng/ml (p=0.04); and a higher frequency of cancer detected 90/212 (43%) versus 134/398 (34%) (p=0.032). Some 34/134 cancers in men <70yrs versus 22/90 (24%) of men >70yrs complied with criteria for active surveillance. CPC detection: 154/398 (39%) men <70yrs were CPC (+), specificity for cancer 86%, sensitivity 88%, 14/16 with a false (-) result had a small low grade PC. In men >70 years, 88/212 (42%) were CPC (+); specificity 92%, sensitivity 87%, 10/12 with a false (-) had small low grade tumours. False (+) results were more common in younger men 36/154 versus 10/88 (p<0.02). With a PSA cutoff of 6.5ng/ml, in men <70yrs, 108 PB would be avoided, missing 56 cancers of which 48 were clinically significant. Using CPC detection, 124 biopsies would be avoided, missing only 2 clinically significant cancers. In men >70 yrs using a PSA >6.5ng/ml would have resulted in 108 PB with 34 PC detected, of which 14(41%) were small low grade tumours. Conclusions: The use of CPC detection in the fit elderly significantly decreases the number of PBs without missing clinically significant cancers, indicating superiority to the use of age-related PSA.

• International journal of advanced smart convergence
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.198-206
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• 2021

Based on the results of the survey and analysis of this study, we suggested a plan to activate the use of Capital Area Public Charnel Facilities as follows. First, the elderly population in Korea increased from 11.9% in 2013 to 16.4% in 2020, and the number of deaths also increased from 266,257 in 2013 to 305,127 in 2020. The supply of Public Charnel Facilities should be expanded, reflecting the cremation demand in the future and condition for the supply and increasing demand of Public Charnel Facilities after cremation, due to an increase of 14.6%. Second, it is urgent to expand the supply because the available period of using Capital Area Public Charnel Facilities is a short period of at least one year up to five years. However, as it is difficult to build Public Charnel Facilities due to location conflicts with local residents, joint construction plans between local governments should be promoted along with renting Private Charnel Facilities. Third, the enshrinement number ratio of the Public Charnel Facilities to the total cremation number of Capital Area Public Cremation Facilities is 16.3%, which is low. Therefore, when building Public Charnel Facilities, improvement plans for the use of public funeral facilities, such as modernization and promotion of facility level, quality improvement of service level, and creation of a pleasant environment, should be actively promoted.

• 한국방재학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.02b
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• pp.36-42
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• 2009

A series of heavy rainfall, typhoon and earthquake disasters caused a proportionately large number of deaths among the elderly in the year 2004 in Japan. In response to these tragedies, the national government set up committees to reduce damage within the disaster vulnerable population for the next three years. The discussions in the committee led to a new conceptualization that disaster vulnerability was caused by a lack of interaction between a person's special needs and the environment's capacity and resources to meet them. This person-in-environment model of hazard vulnerability was applied to those who resided in the Nankai-Tonankai tsunami hazard-prone area. 123 home care service users were interviewed in terms of their self-evacuation ability, degree of social isolation, and building weakness as well as tsunami exposure risks. Results were quantified and scores of person-in-environmentmodel hazard vulnerability were obtained. These scores were then used to visualize socially created vulnerability by means of weighted kernel density mapping of both persons with special needs (PSN's) and persons with special needs at times of disaster (PSND's).

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.157-162
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• 2015

The descriptive epidemiological study aimed to analyse the mortality trends from gynaecological cancer in Serbia. Average annual percentage of change (AAPC) and the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were computed for trend using joinpoint regression analysis. Nearly 25,000 gynaecological cancer deaths occurred in Serbia during the 1991-2010 period, with the average annual age-standardised mortality rate being 17.2 per 100,000 women. Increase of mortality was observed for cancer of the vulva and vagina (AAPC=+1.3%, 95% CI=0.1 to 2.6), ovarian cancer (AAPC=+0.8%, 95% CI=0.4-1.3) and for cervical cancer (AAPC=+0.7%, 95% CI=0.3 to 1.1). Mortality rates for gynaecological cancer overall declined in women aged 30-39 years, but mortality was increased in middle-aged women (for cervical cancer) and in the elderly (for ovarian cancer). Improvements to and implementation of the national cervical cancer screening programme conducted in 2013 and expected to be finalised in the following years throughout Serbia should contribute to improvement.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.86 no.2
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• pp.102-110
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• 2023

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a major health burden worldwide, with over 600 million confirmed cases and 6 million deaths by 15 December 2022. Although the acute phase of COVID-19 management has been established, the long-term clinical course and complications due to the relatively short outbreak is yet to be assessed. The current COVID-19 pandemic is causing significant morbidity and mortality around the world. Interestingly, epidemiological studies have shown that fatality rates vary considerably across different countries, and men and elderly patients are at higher risk of developing severe diseases. There is increasing evidence that COVID-19 infection causes neurological deficits in a substantial proportion to patients suffering from acute respiratory distress syndrome. Furthermore, lack of physical activity and smoking are associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) susceptibility. We should therefore explore why lack of physical activity, smoking, etc causing a population more susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection, and mechanism involved. Thus, in this review article, we summarize epidemiological evidence related to risk factors and lifestyle that affect COVID-19 severity and the mechanism involved. These risk factors or lifestyle interventions include smoking, cardiovascular health, obesity, exercise, environmental pollution, psychosocial social stress, and diet.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.742-752
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• 2015

The communications through the power lines are called as the PLC and this is a common name for the communication modes for the information delivery. This technology transmits the data through the power lines on which the information is stored with the form of high frequency signal. The characteristic of the frequency signal is that the signal can be separated from the power line through exclusive power line modem and transmitted to the terminal devices. In this paper, 'In-home Headcount' checking algorithm using Wi-Fi and taking above mentioned advantages is proposed, and the basic Technology for such Solitary Senior Citizen's Lonely Death monitoring system has been designed and implemented. The comparative analysis has been conducted in this paper with the test-operated and test bed-completed 'Hyosimi 119 Safety-Welfare System' which is still being tested since 2008. With the 'In-home Headcount Checking Algorithm', Wi-Fi connection/disconnection status and SSIDs of relevant Wi-Fis will be checked. We expect that our proposed method will become as the basic Technology which can prevent lonely deaths of elderly people living alone. Since the PLC technology can be normally implement all the functions used on internet anticipate that the technology could be applied to many areas to construct a new form of communication network.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.179-182
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• 2000

Background: A pleural effusion is not a disease entity but a clincial sign of systemic or pleural disease. Although the diagnosis of pleural effusion can often be done by toracentesis and pleural needle biopsy the yeild of positive diagnosis is low.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.28 no.9
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• pp.851-856
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• 1995

Thymectomy has played a central role in the management of myasthenia gravis. Although both the etiology of myasthenia gravis and the reason for improvement after thymectomy remain incompletely explained, complete removal of the thymus is the logical goal of surgical treatment for this disease.From April 1989 to June 1994, maximal thymectomy was performed for 19 cases of myasthenia gravis at Chonnam National University Hospital. The results were as follows:1.Among the 19 cases, male-to-female ratio was 1:1.4, the age ranged 13 years to 71 years, and a diphasic presentation appeared with a peak in young females and a second peak in elderly males;2.Five cases were classified by modified Osserman`s classification as Group I and Group IIa and 14 cases as Group IIb and Group IIc; 3.Histologic examination of the excised thymus glands revealed normality in 5 cases [26% , thymic hyperplasia in 4 [21% , benign thymoma in 8 [42% , and malignant thymoma in 2 [11% ;4.There was no operative mortalities but two deaths occurred during the follow-up periods due to myasthenic crisis and other causes;5.The clinical improvement and the complete remission rates were 85% and 32%, respectively;6.The clinical improvement and the complete remission rates were not so good in patients with thymomas, beeing 70% and 20%, respectively; and 7.Young women with hyperplasia of the thymic tissue tended to show the best response to thymectomy.