• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.97-107
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• 2015

Objectives: The current study aims to examine whether the influence of National Long-term Care Insurance(NLCI) on the quality of life(QoL) trajectory of older adults with disabilities is more positive than its influence on those without disabilities. Methods: Sample consisted of 5,362 elderly aged 65 and over who participated in the Korean Welfare Panel Study from Wave1 to Wave7. Data were analyzed using latent growth curve modeling. Results: Major findings are as follows. (1) Before the NLCI, the trajectories of QoL between older adults with disabilities and those without were same. (2) After the NLCI, elders with disabilities showed lower levels of QoL at the beginning, but the gaps gradually decreased with time. These results indicate that the implementation of NLCI more positively affected elders with disabilities than those without disabilities. Conclusions: These results suggest that the NLCI functions properly as one of social security nets to cope with the needs of older adults with disabilities. In conclusion, it is critical to develop a sustainable NLCI system to enhance the QoL of older adults with disabilities.

• Perspectives in Nursing Science
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.55-65
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• 2009

The Korean government introduced Home Care Services System to cut medical cost and make efficient use of limited medical resources because of increasing chronic diseases and the growing population of the elderly. The Korean government established measures to control the use of insurance services by restricting the number of nurse's visits to patient's home and by asking the patients to shoulder the transportation fee of nurses during the visit. Factors such as oversupply of hospital facilities, low price of home care services, high insurance coverage for hospital services and increased nuclear family set up resulted in the limited use of home care nursing services. The introduction of long-term care insurance in 2007 brought the decrease in the number of home care agencies and these agencies are facing a crisis today. The increase in chronic diseases and growing population of the elderly recently resulted in the need to control the high medical cost. Home care services for early discharge patients and chronic-severe disease patients will contribute in the reduction of medical cost at the same time improves the quality of patient's life. To catch up with the demands of the nation, accessibility to home care services should be improved and policies such as the expansion of home care services insurance coverage and promotion of establishing home care agencies should be considered.

• 한국노년학
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.1359-1375
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• 2010

Expecting the expansion of the elderly population under long-term home care with the coming of the aged society, this study purposed to propose a prevention and self-reliance support model and to get practical implications for minimizing dependency on care benefits and enhancing the effectiveness of prevention and self-reliance support. Research methods employed for this study were: first, reviewing theoretical literature for clarifying the concept of prevention and self-reliance support in providing long-term care benefits for the elderly; second, identifying factors hindering prevention and self-reliance support through analyzing standard long-term care use plans and documents related to long-term care benefits at elderly welfare centers to which the research subjects belonged; and third, surveying care benefit users on factors hindering their use of prevention and self-reliance support and their needs in the use of care benefits. Based on the results of the three types of qualitative research, we proposed directions for prevention and self-reliance support modeling and suggested practical implications for enhancing the effectiveness of prevention and self-reliance support. For this study, we collected documentary materials and conducted in-depth interviews with the participants with the consents and cooperation of managers and professional social workers at day care centers and elderly welfare centers in D City. According to the results of this study, literature review suggested that long-term care prevention and self-reliance support should be provided in a way of 'strengthening user-centered support systems,' which support elderly long-term care beneficiaries' right to lead a life as the subject of their own life. Document analysis found the absence of benefits related to health and medicine and lack of social support systems for prevention and self-reliance support, and the results of in-depth interviews suggested the necessity to strengthen services related to elderly long-term care beneficiaries' prevention and self-reliance, and the keen needs of the long-term care elders for prevention and self-reliance included: ① loneliness, anxiety, fear; ② missing for and worry about children and people; ③ moving, outing; ④ health and medical services, rehabilitation programs; ⑤ desire to use day care; ⑥ inconvenience of house structure; ⑦desire for meal menus; and ⑧ the occurrence of disuse syndrome. Based on these results, we suggested the base of prevention and self-reliance support modeling with three axes: ① strengthening user-centered support systems; ② strengthening support systems connected to health and medicine; and ③ strengthening social support systems.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2020

Given that the demand for dental care for elderly individuals is expected to increase according to demographic changes, long-term roadmaps for the current health insurance system should be actively planned. The study aimed to investigate the health insurance system in Korea, compared to that of Japan, and suggest directions for the work of dental hygienists to provide basic data on efficient improvements in the health insurance system. Based on the collected data, the website was used to collect additional related data from Korea and Japan. The most common cause of death in Korea was malignant neoplasms, and most patients were hospitalized for diseases and disorders of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue. Dental care covered by Korean medical insurance for individuals aged 65 years or older was treatment oriented, such as dentures and implants, while in Japan, treatment-intensive items, such as visiting a dental hygienist for guidance and provision of home-care professional oral hygiene treatment, were covered. The percentages of remaining teeth in Korea and the percentage of remaining 20 teeth were 68.9% in those aged 65 to 74 years and 51.2% in those aged 75 to 84 years in Japan. A strategy for promoting oral health among elderly individuals should be established, and a multilateral intervention approach is required to prevent oral problems from leading to deterioration of whole-body health. The role of dental hygienists in providing comprehensive assessment to elderly individuals is important. In order to provide systemic oral care, it is necessary to introduce oral care systems according to the national policy.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.7-18
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to derive periodical characteristics of the policy for the elderly in Japan by investigating the changes of social security system. The target period of 1946~2000 in Japan was divided into 3 periods for the understanding of periodical characteristics in the focuses of medical, welfare and pension system for the elderly; establishment of concept for the social security and welfare of Japan(1946,1950), appearance of social security system and the elderly problem(to late 1960's), infra construction for aging society(to late 1980's), development and reappraisal of practical policy for the elderly(to late 1990's). It is expected that this paper could provide basic data for the elderly-related policy making in our country.

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.137-146
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• 2011

Long-term care insurance is a social insurance system that provides benefits to the elderly who have difficulty taking care of themselves for a period of at least 6 months. This system was started in July, 2008 and it is very important to set proper judgement ratings for the approval process. We try to develop and improve the judgement rating system using decision tree models. Our tree model is found to be more stable and efficient than the previous one.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.331-338
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• 2008

Objectives : The purpose of this study was to measure the workload of home visit care activities and their relative values. This study examined also factors that affect the workload of home visit care activities. Methods : The participants of this study were 126 home-helpers of 50 home visit care agencies at the 2nd Long-term Care Insurance Demonstration Project. The workload of home visit care activities was divided into total work and four dimensions ; physical efforts, mental efforts, stress and time. Home visit care activities consisted of four categories with 24 items. We used magnitude estimation method to measure their relative values of the four dimensions. The participants answered the relative values of each activities based on the reference service. We used the activity for supporting their elderly's evacuation as the reference service. Results : Most of the respondents were over 40 years old female. They consumed most their time supporting elderly's going out. They consumed their highest physical, mental efforts, and stress for activities of coping with emergency situation. The Pearson correlation coefficients showed significant relationships between workload and each dimensions. This study showed that all four dimensions are statistically significant predictors of workload of home visit care activities. Also, we found that the home-helper's career affects the workload of home visit care activities. Conclusions : The workload of home visit care activities could be explained by physical efforts, mental efforts, stress and time.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Rural Architecture
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.29-36
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to have detailed data of the distribution, locations, and the amount of people in the waiting line of the nursing home. Also, we studied the accessibility to the facilities by using Web GIS to analyze the transit time it takes from the nursing home to health center and hospitals. We can provide the basic data that could contribute when future plans for the nursing homes' locations, health and medical policy are made. The results are as follows. 1. The nursing homes are stiffly concentrated in regions of Seoul and Gyeongi-do where large number of the elderly covered by long-term care insurance and the waiting line was very long for the elderlies to enter the nursing homes. In these cities of Ulsan and Jeju where number of the elderly covered by long-term care insurance is relatively small, there were less facilities. 2. The nursing homes located in urban areas had higher occupancy rate and higher number of people in the waiting line. 3. The average time taken by driving from the nursing homes and health center was 10 minutes and there was not a noticeable difference between the cities. Driving from the nursing homes to hospitals in rural areas took 22 minutes which is 2.5 times of the time taken for urban areas. Daegu-si and Incheon-si had relatively short distance from the nursing homes and the hospitals while Jeju-do had the furthest. For rural areas, it is needed for health center to be equipped with a wider medical coverage, have closely connected with hospitals to minimize the differences they have from ones in rural areas. It is also needed to have ambulances equipped for tele-medical examination and treatment system.

• 한국노년학
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.1345-1357
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• 2010

This research, with the participants of the female elderly using a home-visit bath among long-term care services, made an in-depth analysis of what they experience while getting a home-visit bath. We conducted in-depth interviews with 8 elderly people. According to the result, the female elderly experienced the absence of a caregiver, difficulty in carrying out daily life due to physical diseases, getting what they need by themselves, getting comfortable in body and mind, accepting their given situation though feeling shame at getting a bath, and expressing their desires. In addition, they had a close relationship with a care helper. On the basis of the results, a systematic training system which could intensify the professionalism of care helpers was suggested. For the enhancement of the elderly's emotional stability in a long-term care, an integrated case management system was also suggested, which supports the family by organizing an integrated network by region between a long-term care service, home-visit care service, welfare center, and the National Health Insurance Corporation.

• Journal of Korean Physical Therapy Science
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• v.14 no.1_4
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• pp.25-36
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• 2007

The results of researching on duties of physical therapist, understanding of elderly diseases and policies related with elderly welfare came out from the survey before beginning of education to physical therapists who attended National Elderly Welfare Physical Therapist Workshop during Sep. 11th to 14th, 2007. They have already understood about long-term elderly care insurance from the policy, and responded that those policies will bring more advantage to elders. On contrary, negative response had reason of low service quality. About elderly care system, there were positive answer of appropriate alternatives to support them, but also other critics had opinion of inevitable choice for living conservation. About understanding of elderly diseases, there were more comprehension of diseases as age gets higher, but most did not understand dementia and paralysis. Past experience and process of medical treatment for their disease were such arthritis, paralysis, broken bone, and dislocation of joint. Prognosis of technical training was mostly answered positively, but linking with other related disease programs were not welcomed. Most respondents thought that professional training were needed. The results of understanding diseases during senescent had high percentage of understanding as age and education was high, and it had eye upon statistics of the survey (p < 0.05) Most of those questioned responded that it is appropriate to have six working days per week and eight hours of daily work, however, present wage is not reasonable. Most of those questioned had negative response of work independence, and had an-swered that there should be certificates needed in related fields. For difficulties during work period, they had hardship instituting direction of treatment by lack of program, level of wage, and physical difficulties. Physical therapists averagely wished to have fewer than thirty patients per therapist. After the research, physical therapists who work in those facilities of elderly care systems agreed on policies, though it should not lower service quality. In addition, they were pros to have elderly care system, yet they are still inevitable option to maintain living. For work environment, the period of work was appropriate, but had different opinions for work independence and regular number of patients. Therefore, there should be more organized treatment program that also should be linked to other practical programs at this beginning point of the policy enforcement and the time that many therapists hope to work in elderly care system.