• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.9 no.8
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• pp.77-85
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• 2018

Dementia among the diseases occurring in the old age is recognized as a disease to be solved at the national level and systematic management is being carried out. However, the awareness and response of the mild cognitive disorder, which is the middle stage of normal aging and dementia, are insufficient and social costs are increasing every year. The subjects of the study were 303 hospitalized patients whose primary diagnosis was mild cognitive impairment (F067) in a nursing hospital located in one district in 2016. The number of days of hospitalization was shorter in autumn and longer in winter or in hospital discharge. The cost of treatment for patients with mild cognitive impairment is lower in autumn and higher in winter or in 'discharge' of medical treatment results. The total cost of medical treatment was high in the winter by season in the ADL 6-12 and ADL 13-20 groups. Difference in the cost of medical treatment according to the characteristics of medical treatment, the medical expenses were the highest when the number of corporal disease was 5 ~ 8. In the medical treatment results, the ADL 6-12 point group and the ADL 13-20 point group had high medical expenses in 'continue'. Considering the clinical characteristics of mild cognitive impairment and considering that 10-15% of the patients with mild cognitive impairment progress to dementia every year, early detection and treatment of mild cognitive impairment is an effective and potentially important task for reducing potential social and dementia patients.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.94-101
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• 2016

Objectives : Anemia is a common problem in the management of elderly patients. Recent studies reported that anemia was associated with cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. This study was aimed to analyze the differences of hemoglobin levels in Korean patients with Alzheimer's disease(AD) dementia, mild cognitive impairment(MCI), and healthy controls. Furthermore, the study also examined if any association between hemoglobin levels and cognitive functions existed. Methods : A total of 116 Korean elderly adults were participated in this study(mean age 74.67 years ; 60.3% female). The Korean version of the Mini-Mental State Examination(MMSE-K), Clinical Dementia Rating(CDR) and Global Deterioration Scale(GDS) were applied to all subjects. Hematological and related blood chemistry values were investigated. Results : We found that patients with AD dementia had significantly lower hemoglobin and hematocrit levels than MCI subjects and healthy control group. The hemoglobin levels showed a positive correlation with MMSE-K and negative correlation with CDR, GDS. Conclusions : Among Korean elderly, low hemoglobin level is associated with a cognitive impairment. This study indicates that AD is associated with anemia, and low hemoglobin levels may contribute to potentially useful clinical markers of AD. The risk factor for dementia needs to be confirmed by prospective longitudinal studies in a larger group of patients.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.8 no.11
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• pp.353-361
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to provide basic data to confirm the necessity and effectiveness of the memory school by investigating the perception of users and caregivers about the services and programs provided by the memory school, a social welfare institution for the elderly with minor dementia. For this purpose, 363 students and students in Daegu City were surveyed about the satisfaction and attitude of using memory school. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the use of the memory school is very helpful to the users, and at the same time, it is very meaningful for the decrease of the caregiver burden of the caregiver. Thus, it can be seen that the memory school has the effect of appropriately matching the installation purpose of the facility. In particular, it was found that the degree of satisfaction with the program level, type of service, and future sustainability of the memory school exceeded 90%. Therefore, this study aims to provide policy implications for the social welfare response for the elderly with mild dementia and for the basic data on the memory school for this purpose.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.146-152
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• 2021

This study aims to develop a protocol for the visualized memory training program using the picture book and evaluate its clinical utility. A total of 5 sessions were conducted for 5 elderly people with mild dementia. Rey-Kim II, GDS-Short, word test were conducted to observe its effectiveness before and after the program. As a results overall memory was improved but was not statistically significant. Overall depression was also improved and statistically significant. The effect of word memory varies depending on individuals' degenerative conditions. In conclusion, the visualized memory training program using the picture book is effective in improving the memory to some extent and had an emotional effect of reducing depression in mild dementia. In the future it is necessary to research its effects in larger population.

• Dementia and Neurocognitive Disorders
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.17-29
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• 2022

Background and Purpose: Verbal and nonverbal fluency tests are the conventional methods for examining executive function in the elderly population. However, differences in impairments result in fluency tests in patients with mild cognitive impairments (MCIs) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) and in neural correlates underlying the tests still necessitate concrete evidence. Methods: We compared the test performances in 27 normal controls, 28 patients with MCI, and 20 with AD, and investigated morphological changes in association with the test performances using structural magnetic imaging. Results: Patients with AD performed poorly across all the fluency tests, and a receiver operating characteristics curve analysis revealed that only category fluency test discriminated all the 3 groups. Association, category, and design fluency tests involved temporal and frontal regions, while letter fluency involved the cerebellum and caudate. Conclusions: Category fluency is a reliable measure for screening patients with AD and MCI, and this efficacy might be related to morphological correlates that underlie semantic and executive processing.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.247-262
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• 2019

This study involved the effects of home-visit program with cognitive-stimulating activities on cognitive function and memory self-efficacy of an elderly with dementia special rating(5rates). The study was conducted from February 11 to April 26, 2019 using a 65-year old woman residing in G Metropolitan City. The individual subject study used an A-B-A design. The subject performed activities that required thinking and resolving in order to stimulate both her body and cognition. The activities chosen were easily accessible to those having a form of mild dementia, rates 5 dementia special rating, and repetitively stimulated the subject's intellectual capacity in an attempt to increase her degraded cognitive functioning. Specifically, the activities exercised both short-term memory and recollection using familiar letters, numbers, and bodily movements frequently encountered in daily life. The program positively affected the subject's memory and concentration. In addition, the program was found to be feasible for home use by those with mild dementia, obviating the need to travel to a location like a welfare center. The author presents specific activities for stimulating cognition that can effectively intervene to positively influence the cognitive functioning and memory of those with rates 5 dementia special rating.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.11-17
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• 2001

In 2000, the number of people aged 65 and over increased to 3.37 million, accounting for 7.1% of the total population of South Korea. The elderly population will increase up to 19.3% in 2030. Sleep disordered breathing (SDB) seems to increase with age. More than 50-60% of old people complain of SDB-related signs and symptoms including awakening headache, excessive daytime sleepiness, fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, memory loss, personality changes, and depression. The influence of a mild degree of SDB upon the elderly is unclear, but moderate to severe SDB is well known to be associated with many diseases including hypertension, arrhythmia, myocardial infarction, stroke, dementia, and sudden death. Therefore, physicians should pay attention to elderly patients who complain of SDB related symptoms and signs that may not be normal signs of aging. Physicians need to become more sensitive to treat SDB in the elderly.

• Dementia and Neurocognitive Disorders
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.69-77
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• 2023

Background and Purpose: The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) has been known as a screening test for detecting mild cognitive impairment (MCI) better than Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). However, in previous domestic studies, no significant difference was found in the discriminability between MoCA and MMSE. Researchers have suggested that this might be because older Koreans are less educated than older Westerners. This study was conducted to examine the effect of education on the discriminability of MoCA compared to the MMSE. Methods: Participants were 123 cognitively normal elderly, 118 with vascular MCI, 108 with amnestic MCI, 121 with vascular dementia, and 113 with dementia of the Alzheimer's type. The Korean-MoCA (K-MoCA) and Korean-MMSE (K-MMSE) were administered. Multiple regression analyses and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses were performed. Results: In all participants, education significantly affected both K-MoCA and K-MMSE scores along with age. The effect of education was re-examined by subgroup analysis after dividing subjects according to the level of education. Effect of education on K-MoCA and K-MMSE was only shown in the group with <9 years of education. ROC curve analyses revealed that the discriminability of K-MoCA to differentiate between vascular MCI and normal elderly was significantly higher than that of K-MMSE. When re-examining subgroups divided by education level, however, this higher discriminability of K-MoCA disappeared in the group with <9 years of education. Conclusions: These results indicate no difference in discriminating cognitive deficits between K-MoCA and K-MMSE in Korean elderly with <9 years of education.

• Journal of Oriental Neuropsychiatry
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.185-198
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• 2019

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to identify the effectiveness of Korean medicine treatment in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) among a group of community dwelling elderly. Methods: Two-hundred and twenty-nine elderly living in a community and diagnosed with MCI were recruited. Participants were evaluated with various instruments such as the Korean version of Mini-Mental State Examination for Dementia Screening (MMSE-DS) and the Korean version of Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA-K). Korean medicine treatment consisted of herbal medicine, acupuncture, and pharmacoacupuncture. The change in cognitive ability was assessed by using the MMSE-DS and the MoCA-K. Data were analyzed by SPSS/WIN 22.0 using the paired t-test, and the ANOVA. Results: The MMSE-DS and the MoCA-K score generally increased after six months of Korean medicine treatment and the differences in both instruments were statistically significant. Additionally, some consecutive participants maintained long-term cognitive improvement. When analyzed specifically by herbal medicine group based on syndrome differentiation and pharmacoacupuncture group, most showed improvement in the MMSE-DS and the MoCA-K but not all data were statistically significant. The satisfaction score was mostly high and most participants were willing to re-participate in the program. Conclusions: Korean medicine treatment may contribute to the improvement and prevention of cognitive decline in the elderly. However, further systematic research based on large scale sample data and standardized protocols is needed to uplift the welfare and mental health of the elderly.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.154-164
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• 2022

Objective: The purpose of this study is to select a cognitive training game that can evaluate five cognitive domains and to study their validity with existing cognitive evaluation tools. Design: Methods: Delphi survey was conducted through the 2nd questionnaire for 30 experts to select games suitable for training 5 cognitive domains. Five cognitive training games and Mini Mental State Examination - Korea(MMSE-K), and cognitive impairment screening test(CIST) were conducted for 82 elderly in the community. Pearson correlation analysis was performed to find out the correlation of the three tests. The ROC curve was used to calculate the selection criteria for the game results for the screening evaluation of the presence or absence of mild cognitive impairment. Results: The coefficient of variation to evaluate the stability of the Delphi survey was less than 0.50 in most game items. The 'correct answers' and 'level' of the five final selected game items showed a statistically significant positive correlation with the CIST and MMSE-K scores. CIST score and 'time' of all game items except 'number making_time' showed a statistically significant negative correlation. Conclusions: The validity of the cognitive training program using smart devices was evaluated, and the criteria for classifying the cognitive domain and distinguishing the presence or absence of cognitive impairment were confirmed.