• Journal of Music and Human Behavior
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.49-66
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• 2016

This study investigated the song-induced autobiographical memory of patients with early Alzheimer's Dementia (AD) by comparing the effects of patient-selected songs (M-AD) versus music therapist-selected songs (M-MT). A total of 19 patients with early AD participated in this study. In the M-AD and M-MT conditions, each participant listened to a song and was instructed to recall memory. The time to recall memory, the specificity of the memory, mood changes, and the type of recalled memory were measured. Perceived familiarity and preference of the used songs and association of the song with the recalled memory were also analyzed. The results of the study showed that the M-AD condition elicited more specific memory and positive mood change than the M-MT condition. In addition, AD patients reported a higher level of familiarity with and preference of songs in the M-AD condition, compared to the M-MT condition. These results indicate that patient-selected songs, which have a personal meaning to an individual, could be effectively used for intervening with memory of this population, which would support music therapists to make better decision with regard to song selection. Further studies would be needed to deepen the understanding of autobiographical memory in older population with cognitive impairment and to propose more effective music therapy strategies for intervening with memory.

• Industry Promotion Research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.41-50
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• 2020

WIn Korea, the rapid rise of elderly population and dementia prevalence resulting from the unprecedently rapid aging in the world is being emerged as a serious social issue. Caring the elderly with dementia is a different way from a general life and is a world which new cultural existential relationships are interlaced from the relationship viewpoint. From this aspect, the psychological matter of family caring a demented elderly needs to be studied for existential understanding in depth and fundamentally. This study focused on in-depth understanding and description of the stress phenomena experienced by family caregivers with a demented elderly based on Giorgi's method among phenomenological research methods and using existential group counseling techniques. Total 8 sessions of existential group counseling were conducted. This study drew out the outcomes(emotional stress, psychosocial stress, time-dependent stress) of participants' self-awareness experiences by applying 4 steps of Giorgi's phenomenological research methodology based on the Existential Philosophy to participant's intensive statements about stress of family caring a demented elderly drawn out of the existential group counselling sessions. It is hoped that understanding the pain of the supporters who cannot express their own pains through the research results and their self-help group counseling activities will become active, contributing to the health of our society which is about to enter post-aged society.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.135-141
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• 2013

As the country's elderly people who are 65 years or older recently exceeded 10% of the total population with development of medical technology and improvement of living standards, Korea has turned into an aging society. Especially in Gyeonggi-do, as of late December 2012, elderly people who were 65 years or older were 1,135,242 persons, taking up 18.98% of the region's population and registering the largest number of elderly people in the nation's cities or provinces. Due to such a sharp rise in elderly population, support for the elderly is increasing the burden on families and communities. The study aims to take as its subjects elderly people staying at authorized elderly welfare facilities, who are weak in mind and body and have difficulty in daily life with disabilities, or adult day care facilities that take care of elderly people during the day or at night, examine the concept of adult day care facilities and instances in foreign countries, and study the status of the adult day care facilities located in Gyeonggi-do, their services, and safety by figuring out space arrangement based on program implementation. Spacial arrangement in program operation should satisfy fuction and purpose from the manager and user's perspective, and a desirable program operation should provide separate spaces for the elderly with Alzheimer's and those without Alzheimer's. Compared to residential care facilities, adult day care facilities incur less financial burden and, compared to other authorized services, have many right functions that can upgrade the quality of users and satisfy their desires. Major countries like Japan, the UK, and Sweden recognize the right functions of day and night care services and aggressively support and utilize adult day care facilities. For adult day care facilities, quality services should be developed and use and choices should be enhanced as regards services. Development of special programs for the elderly with dementia and stroke, instead of simple protective functions of a program, must be actively promoted, while manpower training is required for program operation, conveniences, and safety. By developing and providing space arrangement models that focus on efficiency, convenience, and safety of program operation, adult day care operation can be revitalized, while quality of elderly care may be enhanced and welfare budget can be saved.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.306-314
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• 2022

Background: Due to the rapid aging of the South Korean population, neurological diseases such as dementia are increasing. Many studies have reported that the incidence of dementia is associated with environmental factors along with age. Objectives: This study analyzed the association between cognitive function and ten heavy metals in the body: arsenic, aluminum, chromium, manganese, cobalt, nickel, iron, copper, zinc, and lead. Methods: From 2018 to 2019, a total of 120 participants who suffered from cognitive impairment were recruited for this study. Blood and urine samples were collected and analyzed for heavy metal concentrations using an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer. Demographic information was obtained through face-to-face questionnaires completed by a trained investigator. Cognitive function was evaluated with the Korean version of the Mini-Mental State Examination and the Korean version of the Boston Name Waiting Test. The associations between cognitive function scores and heavy metal concentrations were analyzed using multiple logistic regression analysis. Results: The average age of the 120 participants was 72.7 years, and 69.2% were female. The mean of the MMSE-K and K-BNT scores were 22.9 and 37.9, respectively. The geometric mean of aluminum (Al) was 8.42 ㎍/L. MMSE-K was associated with iron (Fe), but the significance was removed in the logistic regression based on 24 points. K-BNT was significantly associated with aluminum and the odds ratio for K-BNT above 38 decreased by 45% as the aluminum concentration increased. Conclusions: The association between aluminum and the K-BNT score indicated that aluminum is associated with language-related cognitive decline. Based on this result, further study will be conducted by considering co-exposure effects of heavy metals including aluminum.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.67-71
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of a community-based cognitive stimulation program on cognitive function and subjective memory in the elderly with mild cognitive impairment. This study was applied by selecting 15 users who understood the purpose of this study and agreed to participate in the shelter program for more than 3 months from April 2019 to August 2019 at the D Dementia Center in G located, Gyeonggi-do. The program consisted of a total of 36 cognitive stimulation programs 3 times a week a total of 3 months. Cognitive stimulation program stimulates cognitive function through various activities such as orientation reinforcement, cognitive training, recall, music, art, and physical play, and is used for the purpose of improving social function. It consists of folk songs, percussion instruments, national gymnastics, dance, games, and traditional games. As a result of the cognitive stimulation program, the average cognitive function increased by 2.13 points from 26.33 points before implementation to 28.46 points after implementation, and a statistically significant result was obtained (p=0.000). Subjective memory decreased by 3.53 points from the average of 7.13 points before the cognitive stimulation program was implemented to 3.60 points after the implementation, and a statistically significant result was obtained (p=0.000). It can be confirmed that this works. Dementia is leading to a cost burden, and congnitive function decreases the aqulity of life. It brings various burdens. It is necessary to study cognitive stimulation programs applied to various environments in the future.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.23-34
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• 2017

Objectives : The aim of this study was to survey the present utilization of pattern identification(PI) by chronic disease and using PI system in the clinical field among Korean medicine doctors. Methods : This survey was conducted from Oct. 1 to Oct. 31, 2014 by face-to-face interview using structured questionnaire. The subjects were 400 Korean medicine doctors who worked in hospitals or clinics. The questionnaire consisted of whether use clinical experience by chronic disease and the utilization of PI, the utilization of PI systems, the PI utilization rate, and the correlation between utilization PI and so on. General elements consisted of sex, age, clinical experience, place of work, district and so on. Results and Conclusions : This study revealed that clinical experience by chronic disease used 24.0-90.8%. The most chronic diseases were chronic fatigue and chronic pain, and least disease was cancer. Experience of the utilization of PI among Korean medicine doctors who have clinical experience was 87.8-97.1%. Also, the most utilized disease was chronic gastritis & gastric ulcer, and least disease was dyslipidemia. In this case, the most common cases were using the one PI between the utilization of PI systems, and the utilization ratio of Visceral PI was the highest. Phi coefficient between the PI systems in chronic diseases divided into positive correlation and negative correlation. The correlation of dementia between Triple energizer PI and Six excesses PI was the highest at positive correlation, and the frequency of occurrence between Defense, Qi, Nutrient and Blood PI was the highest at positive correlation. The correlation of osteoarthropathy between Meridian and Collateral PI and Sasang Constitutional Medicine was the highest at negative correlation. Also the frequency of occurrence between Qi, Blood, Fluid and Humor PI and Sasang Constitutional Medicine was the highest at negative correlation. We hope that additional studies on systematic PI research of chronic disease which needed to be in korean oriental medicine and meet the needs of clinical consumer continue based on this study.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.82 no.5
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• pp.1124-1139
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• 2021

The objective assessment of atrophy and the measurement of brain volume is important in the early diagnosis of dementia and neurodegenerative diseases. Recently, several MR-based volumetry software have been developed. For their clinical application, several issues arise, including the standardization of image acquisition and their validation of software. Additionally, it is important to highlight the diagnostic performance of the volumetry software based on expert opinions. We instituted a task force within the Korean Society of Neuroradiology to develop guidelines for the clinical use of MR-based brain volumetry software. In this review, we introduce the commercially available software and compare their diagnostic performances. We suggest the need for a standard protocol for image acquisition, the validation of the software, and evaluations of the limitations of the software related to clinical practice. We present recommendations for the clinical applications of commercially available software for volumetry based on the expert opinions of the Korean Society of Neuroradiology.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.637-653
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• 2020

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: This study examined the associations between food consumption frequency of Korean adults and self-perceived chewing difficulty, using the food frequency questionnaire (FFQ, 112 items) from 2013-2016 of the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES). SUBJECTS/METHODS: Subjects were divided into not difficult in chewing (NDC) and difficult in chewing (DC) groups, with 24.17% being classified into DC. Males and females consumed 35 and 37 items less frequently than the other sex, respectively. Due to the remarkable gender difference in food consumption, gender-stratified one-sided survey regression analysis was performed after adjusted for the effect of age, household income, and self-rated health status. RESULTS: Thirty-four items of FFQ were significantly less consumed by the DC group. Females exclusively consumed less beverages and alcohol while males showed the same for fruits and milk·dairy products. Consumption frequency of 8 items such as steamed potatoes·grilled potatoes, stir fried beef, other kimchi·fresh vegetable kimchi, orange, sour pork·pork cutlet, tteokbokki and green tea were significant only in males. In contrast, 17 items including cooked rice with other grains and legumes, boiled egg·steamed egg, Korean cabbage kimchi, banana, and tofu stew·soft tofu stew were significant only for females. Finally, items that showed significance for both were 9 items including loaf bread, ready-to-eat cereal, steamed sweet potatoes·grilled sweet potatoes, stir-fried lotus roots·stir-fried burdock, green laver salad·brown seaweed salads, apples, tomato·cherry tomatoes, squid (raw, dried shredded, boiled, stir-fried), and curd type yogurt. CONCLUSIONS: Findings in this study suggest chewing difficulty may be an important nutritional issue that has to be dealt with for healthful food consumption, with distinct interest of gender.

• Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.40-49
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• 2011

Purpose: This study aimed to identify the prevalence of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) among a group of community-dwelling elderly and to determine if there were differences in general characteristics, activities of daily living (ADL), perceived health status (PHS) between the MCI group and group of elderly with normal cognitive function. Methods: This study utilized a descriptive survey design. Six hundred and five subjects over the age 65 were recruited from an S public health center, Seoul. Data were gathered through a variety of instruments: MoCA-K, K-MMSE, K-MBI, S-IADL, and PHS scale. Data were analyzed by SPSS/WIN 18.0 using descriptive statistics, Chi-Square test and t-test. Results: The prevalence of MCI among the subjects was 46.0%. Differences in IADL, PHS, age, education, sex, and residing with a spouse were statistically significant between groups. The MCI group had lower IADL, lower PHS, were older, and had lower educational levels than the group with normal cognitive function. Further, the MCI group was less likely to live with a spouse. Conclusion: It is suggested that MCI group should be targeted in developing and implementing nursing strategies to prevent dementia and improve the elderly cognitive function.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.147-157
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• 2018

Alzheimer's disease has the significant factors for the both specific and characteristic features according to the disease progressing that are the volumetry and surface area by the brain hippocampus shrinking and thinning. However, we have suggested a shape analysis to calculate the variance by the roughness, coarseness or uneven surface on 3D MR images. For the reasons we have presented two methods: the first method is the distance calculation from major axis to edge points and the second method is the distance calculation from centroidal point to edge points on a coronal plane. Then we selected the shortest distance and the longest distance in each slice and analyzed the ANOVA and average distances. Consequently we obtained the available and great results by the longest distance of the axial and centroidal point. The results of average distances were 44.85(AD), 45.04(MCI) and 49.31(NC) from the axial points and 39.30(AD), 39.58(MCI) and 44.78(NC) from centroidal points respectively. Finally the distance variations for the easily recognized visualization were shown by the color mapping. This research could be provided an indicator of biomarkers that make diagnosis and prognosis the Alzheimer's diseases in the future.