• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.83-90
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• 2019

Recently, the need to prevent or treat cognitive impairment in older adults has been arising. In particular, they tried to diagnose MCI as an early stage of Alzheimer's disease and to delay the progression to dementia through training cognitive function. Most of cognitive function training have been manufactured to game contents which related to several cognitive function, and it needs to be verified quantitatively whether subjects are paying attention to cognitive function training. Thus in this study, we measured and analyzed EEG signals while performing attention training game contents. As an analysis method, we utilized CI, which shows how much they are focusing on, and RI, which shows how stable they are. The result of this study can be seen that all the subjects' CI were increased, which means that the subjects performed game contents with concentration.

• English & American cultural studies
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.27-50
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• 2018

Old age is often compared as climbing mountains which requires walking out of breath, yet with wider vision. And it is also likened to the estuary where the river flows slowly and broadly into the open sea. Socially, old age has been regarded as a symbol of wisdom and reflection, and elderly people often take the role of sage who leads the community. On the other hand, the dementia, gray hair and wrinkles of old age were sometimes perceived as the decline of intellect and vitality. Especially, in the digital age in which technology makes people more sensitive to physical artificiality, the evaluation of the old age becomes more complex and obscure. In other words, some elderly people can not escape from Confucious convention of the elders first, which causes the denouncement by younger generations. On the other hand, some elderly people are becoming more adaptable to the trend of young people, emerging as the new elderly people. The anti-aging movement, early adaptation of IT, bioengineering regimen also strong for the advanced age. However, as the new elderly people are active in many fields of society, they also face intergenerational conflicts in some areas where remains the overlap between young people and them due to the limited openings in economy and culture. This study is a transdisciplinary research which can be called old age humanities. First of all, this paper looks at the aspects of lifestyles and intergeneration conflicts in old age in four Korean and Western literary works about the old people, and also searches how to improve the quality of the later life of old people, Overall, this paper aims to explore the way the old people can achieve the full life with the help of intergenerational dependency through building aging humanities and new communities for old people.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.71-78
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• 2022

Parkinson's disease (PD) is clinically characterized by a variety of motor and non-motor symptoms, including cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Integrating a large variety of symptoms into a small number of clinical subtypes could be valuable for appropriate and early therapeutic intervention. As a first step toward this aim, this study attempted to identify correlation patterns among motor, cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms in PD without dementia. One hundred four non-demented patients with PD underwent a comprehensive motor, neuropsychological, and neuropsychiatric assessments. Factor analysis was performed to identify correlation patterns among demographic, motor, cognitive and neuropsychiatric variables. The eight factors were extracted: 1 motor-related, 3 cognitive-related and 4 neuropsychiatric factors. We indentified that characteristics of correlation can have associated symptom pattern in the disease process of Parkinson's disease. The current results suggest that a broad range of motor and non-motor symptoms in PD may be reducible to a small number of clinical parameters, which may be useful for identifying clinical subtypes of PD for individual patients.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.185-192
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• 2022

Early detection of mild cognitive impairment can help prevent the progression of dementia. The purpose of this study was to design and validate a machine learning model that automatically differential diagnosed patients with mild cognitive impairment and identified cognitive decline characteristics compared to a control group with normal cognition using resting-state quantitative electroencephalogram (qEEG) with eyes closed. In the first step, a rectified signal was obtained through a preprocessing process that receives a quantitative EEG signal as an input and removes noise through a filter and independent component analysis (ICA). Frequency analysis and non-linear features were extracted from the rectified signal, and the 3067 extracted features were used as input of a linear support vector machine (SVM), a representative algorithm among machine learning algorithms, and classified into mild cognitive impairment patients and normal cognitive adults. As a result of classification analysis of 58 normal cognitive group and 80 patients in mild cognitive impairment, the accuracy of SVM was 86.2%. In patients with mild cognitive impairment, alpha band power was decreased in the frontal lobe, and high beta band power was increased in the frontal lobe compared to the normal cognitive group. Also, the gamma band power of the occipital-parietal lobe was decreased in mild cognitive impairment. These results represented that quantitative EEG can be used as a meaningful biomarker to discriminate cognitive decline.

• Korean Journal of Exercise Nutrition
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.93-100
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• 2012

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia in adults. Microtubule associated protein tau is abnormally phosphorylated in AD and aggregates as paired helical filaments (PHFs) in neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs). NFTs are the most common intraneuronal inclusion in the brains of patients with AD and have been implicated in mediating neuronal cell death and cognitive deficit. Aberrant phosphorylation of tau is an early pathological event in AD, but the underlying mechanisms are unclear. MAP kinases are a family of Serine/Threonine (Ser/Thr) kinases that involved hyper - phosphorylation of tau in AD. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of treadmill exercise on phosphorylation of tau level and activation of MAPKs including JNK, ERK, p38-MAPK. To address this, Tg mouse model of AD, Tg-NSE/hTau 23, which expresses human tau 23 in the brain, was chosen. Animals were subjected to treadmill exercise for 12 weeks from 24 months of age. Treadmill exercise in Tg group improved cognitive function compared with Tg-SED group in watermaze test. In addition, treadmill exercised Tg mice significantly reduced the activation of JNK54/46, p38-MAPK and tau (Ser404, Ser202, Thr231), and increased activation of ERK44/42 in cerebral cortex. These results suggest that treadmill exercise may provide a therapeutic potential to alleviate the tau pathology like AD.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.24 no.11
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• pp.1131-1141
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• 2023

Objective: Cortical iron deposition has recently been shown to occur in Alzheimer's disease (AD). In this study, we aimed to evaluate how cortical gray matter iron, measured using quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM), differs in the clinical cognitive impairment spectrum. Materials and Methods: This retrospective study evaluated 73 participants (mean age ± standard deviation, 66.7 ± 7.6 years; 52 females and 21 males) with normal cognition (NC), 158 patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 48 patients with AD dementia. The participants underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging using a three-dimensional multi-dynamic multi-echo sequence on a 3-T scanner. We employed a deep neural network (QSMnet+) and used automatic segmentation software based on FreeSurfer v6.0 to extract anatomical labels and volumes of interest in the cortex. We used analysis of covariance to investigate the differences in susceptibility among the clinical diagnostic groups in each brain region. Multivariable linear regression analysis was performed to study the association between susceptibility values and cognitive scores including the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Results: Among the three groups, the frontal (P < 0.001), temporal (P = 0.004), parietal (P = 0.001), occipital (P < 0.001), and cingulate cortices (P < 0.001) showed a higher mean susceptibility in patients with MCI and AD than in NC subjects. In the combined MCI and AD group, the mean susceptibility in the cingulate cortex (β = -216.21, P = 0.019) and insular cortex (β = -276.65, P = 0.001) were significant independent predictors of MMSE scores after correcting for age, sex, education, regional volume, and APOE4 carrier status. Conclusion: Iron deposition in the cortex, as measured by QSMnet+, was higher in patients with AD and MCI than in NC participants. Iron deposition in the cingulate and insular cortices may be an early imaging marker of cognitive impairment related neurodegeneration.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.733-740
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• 2024

The purpose of this study is to activate rehabilitation exercises to prevent MCI (mild cognitive impairment) in the elderly at home. Through the convergence of AI and rehabilitation exercise, we will be able to provide integrated services of medical care and rehabilitation exercise that enable integrated health management by activating rehabilitation exercise linkage in medically vulnerable communities such as rural areas and establishing exercise data. To this end, as a convergence development plan for AI and rehabilitation exercise, interdisciplinary experts will participate to produce and distribute game and rehabilitation exercise instruction manuals by type to improve cognitive function and musculoskeletal function, and systematize rehabilitation exercise programs needed for the elderly at home. The development, operation, and education of physical fitness assessment manuals can be expanded and will be of great help in early prevention of dementia.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.21-31
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• 2018

The rapid increase of the elderly living alone is a critical issue in worldwide as it leads to a rapid increase of a social support costs (e.g., medical expenses) for the elderly. In early stages of dementia, the activities of daily living (ADL) including self-care tasks can be affected by abnormal patterns or behaviors and used as an evidence for the early diagnosis. However, extracting activities using non-intrusive approach is still quite challenging and the existing methods are not fully visualized to understand the behavior pattern or routine. To address these issues, this research suggests a model to extract the activities from coarse-grained data (spatio-temporal data log) and visualize the behavioral context information. Our approach shows the process of extracting and visualizing the subject's spaceactivity map presenting the context of each activity (time, room, duration, sequence, frequency). This research contributes to show a possibility of detecting subject's activities and behavioral patterns using coarse-grained data (limited to spatio-temporal information) with little infringement of personal privacy.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.79 no.1
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• pp.37-41
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• 2016

Iron supplements such as ferrous sulfate tablets are usually used to treat iron-deficiency anemia in some elderly patients with primary neurologic disorders or decreased gag reflexes due to stroke, senile dementia, or parkinsonism. While the aspiration of ferrous sulfate is rarely reported, it is a potentially life-threatening condition that can lead to airway necrosis and bronchial stenosis. A detailed history and high suspicion of aspiration are required to avoid delays in diagnosis and treatment. The diagnosis can be confirmed by bronchoscopic examination and a tissue biopsy. Early removal of the aspirated tablet prevents acute complications, such as bronchial necrosis, hemoptysis, and lobar consolidation. Tablet removal is also necessary to prevent late bronchial stenosis. We presented the first case in Korea of a ferrous sulfate tablet aspiration that induced severe endobronchial inflammation.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.201-210
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• 2016

Delirium is a common symptom in patients with terminal cancer. The prevalence increases in the dying phase. Delirium causes negative effects on quality of life for both patients and their families, and is associated with higher mortality. However, some studies reported that it tends to remain unrecognized in palliative care setting. That may be related with difficulties to distinguish the symptom from others with overlapping characteristics such as depression and dementia, and a lack of knowledge regarding assessment and diagnostic tools. We suggest that accurate recognition with validated tools and early diagnosis of the symptom should be highly prioritized in delirium management in palliative care setting. After diagnosing delirium, it is important to identify and address reversible precipitants such as medication, dehydration, and infection. Non-pharmacological interventions including comfortable environment for the patient and family education are also essential in the management strategy. If such interventions prove ineffective or insufficient to control hyperactive symptoms, pharmacologic interventions with antipsychotics and benzodiazepine can be considered. Until now, low levels of haloperidol remains the standard treatment despite a lack of evidence. Atypical antipsychotics such as olanzapine, quetiapine and risperidone reportedly have similar efficacy with a stronger sedating property and less adverse effect compared to haloperidol. Currently, delirium medications that can be used in palliative care setting require more clinical trials, and thus, clinical guidelines are not sufficiently available. We suggest that it is warranted to develop clinical guidelines based on well-designed clinical studies for palliative care patients.