• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.24 no.9
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• pp.1245-1248
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• 2020

Elderly people living alone need smart care for independent living. Recent advances in artificial intelligence have allowed for easier interaction by a computer-controlled virtual human. This technology can realize services such as medicine intake guide for the elderly living alone. In this paper, we suggest an intelligent virtual human and present our virtual human toolkit for controlling virtual humans for a senior citizen living alone. To make the virtual human motion, we suggest our authoring toolkit to map gestures, emotions, voices of virtual humans. The toolkit configured to create virtual human interactions allows the response of a suitable virtual human with facial expressions, gestures, and voice.

• The Journal of Korean Academic Society of Nursing Education
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.499-508
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• 2015

Purpose: This study was conducted in order to determine the extent of ego integrity and to confirm the association between the sense of ego integrity and integrated loneliness, social support, and social activities. Methods: For this study, 146 elderly people participated. The data was analyzed with SPSS/WIN 21.0, using descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, correlation analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis. Results: In regards to differences between ego integrity according to general characteristics of subjects, there was a statistically significant difference in education (F=4.13, p=.007). In elderly living alone, ego integrity was significantly positive correlated with social support and social activities, but negative correlated with loneliness. These variables explained 43.2% of the sense of ego integrity. Conclusion: The study suggested that nursing programs and social activity programs designed to aid the elderly living alone must focus on reducing loneliness, as well as increasing social support and social activities, while taking education into consideration. Also, these programs should strive to build social support systems.

• 한국노년학
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.1015-1033
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to examine the meaning and essence of the life of elderly men living alone in public rental housing. Among the phenomenological study methods, the present study used the analysis method proposed by Giorgi(2009). The study participants included 10 elderly men living alone in public rental housing who were recruited through network sampling. The research data were collected through in-depth interviews conducted twice for each person. The results showed that living alone as an elderly man is likened to standing against cold wind out in the wilderness of the world, with living alone deemed a power game between life and death. For the participants, public rental housing is a fence that separates them from the world-the final station of a wandering life. For common people, public rental housing is a stable fence, but for the participants, it is the location of a double-edged solitary life out in the wilderness where the instincts for survival and death play a tug of war. Based on the study findings, the researcher discussed and provided suggestions for psychological housing stability, the disparagement of the elderly in mass media, and countermeasures against psychological isolation.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.65-78
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• 2002

This study was conducted to identify the social support to living alone elderly in some rural communities and the level of life satisfaction. For the purpose of this study, face-to-face interviews and questionnaire were performed with 315 old people(male 43 and female 272) aged over 65 living alone in rural communities covered by 14 community health posts within Gyeongsangbuk-do Province randomly selected. The followings are summaries of findings; The average score of support from their children was $4.29{\pm}2.73$ out of 8. Variables that showed a significant difference were religion, level of living, type of medical insurance, frequency of meeting with children, time taken from houses of children by usual means of transportation, and subjective health status. It was found that the score of support from children was high for the elderly who had a religion, a good level of living, benefit from medical insurance, a high frequency of meeting with children, or a good subjective health status, or who resided close to their children's houses. The level of the support from friends and relatives showed a significant difference depending on the subjective health status, of which the average score was $4.13{\pm}2.61$ out of 8. The average score of the level of life satisfaction was $6.83{\pm}4.24$(male $7.60{\pm}4.09$ and female $6.71{\pm}4.26$) out of 17. Male elderly showed the higher level of life satisfaction than female elderly. Variables that showed a statistically significant difference in the level of life satisfaction were religion, level of living, medical insurance, hobby, children, disease, subjective health status, and ADL. That is, the level of satisfaction with life was found to be higher for the elderly who had a religion, a good level of living, benefit from medical insurance, a hobby, children, no diseases, or a good ADL, or who thought that they are healthy. The regression analysis with support from children as a dependent variable showed that the level of support from children was higher for the elderly who had a good level of living, frequency of meeting with children, or a good subjective health status. The regression analysis with the level of support from friends or relatives was higher for old people who had a good level of living. The regression analysis with the level of life satisfaction as a dependent variable showed that the factors which related to the level of satisfaction were sex, religion, level of living, hobby, ADL, and subjective health status. That is, it was found that for male elderly who had a religion, a good level of living or a hobby, or who thought that they were healthy, the level of life satisfaction was higher.

• Journal of Korean Academic Society of Home Health Care Nursing
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.89-97
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• 2009

Purpose: To identify the health condition, home care support, support requirement of poor and elderly people living alone. Method: Data was collected through self-administered questionnaires and analyzed by descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA and correlation. Survey involved 269 conveniently selected who have a social support in H city. Result: Perceived health condition of subjects was bad to moderate (mean score: 2.22). There were significant home care support differences according to gender, religion, education level and dwelling pattern. Support requirement was influences only by the dwelling pattern. Perceived health condition showed a positive correlation with home care support of friends and neighbors, and a negative correlation with support requirement (medical, material, economic emotional support). Conclusion: These findings are expected to make a positive contribution to create an ideal intervention for public visiting nurses and social workers to improve the quality of life in poor and elderly people who live alone.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.69-76
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of health control behaviors on the emotional happiness of the elderly. Among the survey instruments used in this study, emotional hapiness was the tool developed by Watson et al., 1978, and health control behavior was used by tools developed by Wallston et al., in 1988. Health control behaviors consist of three sub-factors: other health control behavior, accidental health control behavior, and internal health control behavior. The data collection period was collected from June 20 to July 5, 2018. A total of 152 participants were enrolled from 65 to 85 years old and were collected from six provinces of Korea (Seoul, Gangwon Province, Gyeongsang Province, Jeolla Province, Chungcheong Province, Gyeonggi Province) as much as possible. As a result of the analysis of demographic characteristics, the number of elderly people couple living was 47.4%, living alone was 21.1%, the number of people living with a couple and their children was 13.8%, the others were 10.5%. Based on the above results, 21.1% were living alone as an elderly person. And people who the highest monthly income of less than 1 million won was 36.8%, the usual meal type, 94.7% were very much eaten with vegetarianism smoking and drinking alcohol, and 94.7% did not smoke and 73.7% drank alcohol. In conclusion, Multiple regression analysis of health control behaviors on emotional happiness showed that health control behaviors had a 15% effect on emotional happiness. The following suggestions were made through the results of this study. First, the monthly income of the elderly is very low to maintain health, Second, the health of elderly people was maintained through friends and meetings. Based on these results, it should be used as a basic data for the program for the emotional happiness of the elderly.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.79-86
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• 2022

The purpose of this study was to identify suicidal ideation and related factors of elderly people with diabetes mellitus living alone in rural area. A descriptive study design was used. The participants were 466 elderly people, aged 65 years and over, and diagnosed with diabetes mellitus living at O province in South Korea. Collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, χ²-test, and logistic regression analysis with SPSS statistics 26.0 program. The results of the analysis showed that the suicidal ideation rate of the subjects was 27.3%, and the subjects showed significant differences in suicidal ideation as Cognitive function was lower (t=-4.23, p<.001), Depression(t=9.56, p<.001) and Loneliness (t=4.88, p<.001) were higher. Related Factors of suicidal ideation were Cognitive function (OR=0.86, p<.001), Depression (OR=1.18, p<.001) and Loneliness (OR=1.17, p=.001). These variables explained 32.2% of suicidal ideation. Therefore, in order to reduce suicide ideation of the elderly with diabetes mellitus living alone in rural areas, intervention that can improve Cognitive function, Depression, and Loneliness is needed.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.51-58
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to analyze suicidal ideation of elderly people with diabetes living alone and to investigate the relationship between suicidal ideation, loneliness, and depression. This study was conducted through secondary data analysis using total survey data for the elderly living alone in O province. The subjects of this study were 466 elderly people who were diagnosed with diabetes among the elderly living alone. The data of this study were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, Pearson's correlation coefficients, multi-linear regression analysis, and the three-step mediating effect verification procedure of Baron & Kenny using the SPSS 26.0 program. The average loneliness score and average depression score of the subjects were 4.52±3.30 and 4.88±4.03, respectively, and 27.3% of the subjects said they had a suicidal ideation. The subject's loneliness (β=.20, p=.005) and depression (β=.30, p<.001) was found to be a significant factor in predicting suicide ideation. In addition, depression was found to be partially mediated in the relationship between loneliness and suicidal ideation. Through the results of this study, loneliness and depression were found to be important factors related to suicidal ideation in the elderly with diabetes living alone. In addition, in order to improve suicidal ideation in the elderly with diabetes living alone, intervention to lower the level of loneliness and depression is necessary.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.557-564
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• 2018

Along with the aging society, the prevalence of dementia is also increasing. Dementia causes short-term memory loss as well as difficulties of performing daily activities and gradually causes suffering of the patients and their family. In spite of various programs for prevention of dementia of older people are being implemented, there is a lack of developing natural-based program for physical and mental health promotion. Therefore, it is necessary to develop programs for the elderly living alone who are more vulnerable to dementia because of their social and economic isolation. The purpose of this study was to develop a natural-based program and investigate the effects of 10 weeks forest therapy program for dementia prevention to improve the psychological and physical health of the elderly living alone. The experimental subjects were 30 elderly (aged 65 or older) and 31 elderly participated in control group. The Stress response, depressive symptoms, weight, body mass index (BMI), fat mass and muscle mass were measured for pre and post test. The results showed that the experimental group showed subjective stress relief (t=5.249, p=.000), improvement in symptoms of depression (t=4.152, p=.000), and decreases in weight (t=2.686, p=.012), BMI (t=2.629, p=.014) and fat mass (t=2.918, p=.007) after the forest therapy program. The experimental group showed lower stress reactions(t=-7.185, p=.000) and less depressive symptoms (t=-5.303, p=.000) than control group after participating the program. These results suggest that periodic forest exposure can help having less stressful and depressive status than non-forest exposure and the forest therapy program can reduce participants' psychological and physical risk factors of dementia.

• Proceeding of Spring/Autumn Annual Conference of KHA
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.140-143
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• 2008

As the number of family living alone is expected to soar due to a change in socio-demographics like divorce, more middle-aged women returning to work, homes become smaller and so on. In addition to in 2020 these people will be increase so that 85 percent of the Koreans compose elderly living alone who is over 65. This study aims at developing a sharing-typed elderly people-centered rental model which is accessible in the community integration dimension as an alternative and finding out theirconscious, their need about residence. and we need to check about their major requirements on improvement step by step. so that we suggest the desirable way on the existing multi house. The model provides benefits in the social, economical and pragmatic dimensions as the families living alone get together and living with others, Particularly, as a residence model which reduces a psychological loneliness and at the same time enables the elderly to continue to live a life in the community while they live together with other people, this model could be a strategy which supports the "Aging in Place." This study is in progress via small group workshop which debate gradually about special subject with similar group member. So we can find the residence's preference on living environment in various condition and the member can imagine freely on their future living arrangement by giving the various informations which can be proceed in future. The workshop proceed three times. at the first workshop, we're check their living environment and satisfaction level. and second time we give the knowledge about shared-type rental house then discuss about the model. and last time we're listen to the residence's opinion.