• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.9
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• pp.120-130
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of line dance activity on the balance factors during static standing to reveal the exercise intervention for fall prevention. A 15-week line dance programme was applied to 16 elderly females who aged more than 65 years in the community. Balance ability during static standing was evaluated by the range of center of pressure(cop), the velocity of cop, and sway area that calculated on the basis of ground reaction force data, forces, and moments. The range and velocity of cop in the anterio-posterior were significantly reduced after line dance(p<.01, p<.05, respectively), but change in those of cop in the medio-lateral was not found. It was demonstrated that 16-week line dance activities allow more effective in anterio-posterior stability and sway area of static standing. It was suggested that the effect of fall prevention exercise should be studied more associate with fall from vestibular and sensory system as future study.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.32-39
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• 2019

Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of whole body vibratory stimulation on muscle strength, balance, and fall efficacy among super-aged women. Design: Randomized controlled trial. Methods: Twenty-eight super-aged women over 80 years of age were assigned to either the experimental group (n=14) and control group (n=14). The experimental group received an exercise program that used the whole body vibratory stimulation with a frequency of 30 Hz and amplitude of 3 mm, and the control group received an exercise program without vibratory stimulation. Intervention was provided for 4 weeks, 3 sessions per week, and 30 minutes per session. In order to measure lower extremity muscle strength the 30-second chair stand test (CST) was used. The Berg Balance Scale (BBS) was used to measure dynamic balance. Static balance was measured by tracking the path length, velocity, and area of the center of pressure (CoP). The Falls Efficacy Scale (FES) was used to measure the subjects' fear of falling. Results: Both the experimental and control group demonstrated statistically significant increase in muscle strength, dynamic balance, and fall efficacy (p<0.05). Only the experimental group showed significant improvements in static balance before and after the intervention (p<0.05). The experimental group showed significantly greater improvements in CST, BBS, and CoP (path length, velocity) than control group (p<0.05). Conclusions: Whole body vibratory stimulation exercise is shown to be a safe and appropriate physical therapy intervention method to enhance muscle strength, balance, and fall efficacy of super-aged women.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.6353-6363
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• 2013

This study examined the factors associated with recurrent falls among the community-dwelling elderly. The participants were 329 community-dwelling elderly. The data was collected from February 5, 2010 to February 14, 2010. Over the past 1 year, 14.3% of the 329 participants fall once, and 4.0% experienced recurrent falls. There was a significant difference among the non fallers, single faller and recurrent fallers with regard to the static balance(F=5.86, p=.003), dynamic balance(F=24.32, p<.001), risk of fall(F=9.94, p<.001) and compliance of prevention behavior related to falls(F=3.09, p=.047). The analysis results for the correlation between variables showed that the number of falls had a negative effect on the knee flexors muscular strength(r=-.15, p=.008), static balance(r=-.16, p=.004) and compliance of prevention behavior related to falls(r=-.12, p=.030) and a positive affect for the dynamic balance(r=.26, p<.001), depression(r=.13, p=.019) and risk of falls(r=.30, p<.001). The variables explained 36.0% of the variants in the occurrence of recurrent falls. Therefore, an effective recurrent fall prevention program should focus on multiple risk factor intervention.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.43-53
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• 2010

This study aimed to compare fear and prevention behaviors on accidents between mothers and teachers in family childcare centers. The participants were 117 mothers whose children were 0~2 year-olds and 121 teachers. Based on Hendrickson(2008) and Reichert & Henricks(1996), the scale was developed by the researcher, and it was composed of fear and prevention behaviors on accident. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and $x^2$ analysis. Results showed that mothers feared fall accidents and step-on-accidents while teachers feared suffocation accidents and liability for injury medical fee. Also, mothers did more prevention behaviors on use of car seats than teachers, whereas teachers did more behaviors on walk safety, custody of drugs and dangerous articles, and food safety.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.283-290
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• 2012

Objectives: People who have chronic diseases, as well as gait imbalance or psychiatric drug use, may be susceptible to injuries from falls and slips. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of musculoskeletal diseases on incidental fall-related injuries among adults in Korea. Methods: We analyzed data from the 4th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2007-2009), which are national data obtained by a rolling survey sampling method. The 1-year incidence of fall-related injuries was defined by health service utilization within the last year due to injury occurring after a slip and fall, and musculoskeletal diseases included osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, and back pain. To evaluate the effects of preexisting musculoskeletal diseases, adults diagnosed before the last year were considered the exposed group, and adults who had never been diagnosed were the unexposed group. Results: The weighted lifetime prevalence of musculoskeletal disease was 32 540 per 100 000 persons. Musculoskeletal diseases were associated with a higher risk of fall-related injury after adjustment for sex, age, residence, household income, education, occupation, visual disturbance, paralysis due to stroke, and medication for depression (odds ratio [OR], 1.41; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.03 to 1.93). As the number of comorbid musculoskeletal diseases increased, the risk of fall-induced injuries increased (p-value for trend <0.001). In particular, patients who had any musculoskeletal condition were at much higher risk of recurrent fall-related injuries (OR, 6.20; 95% CI, 1.06 to 36.08). Conclusions: One must take into account the risk of fall-related injuries and provide prevention strategies among adults who have musculoskeletal diseases.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.109-113
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• 2018

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of fall experience and task complexity on gait performance in community-dwelling persons with chronic hemiparetic stroke. Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: Thirty-three persons who had a history of stroke participated in this study. The participants included 18 persons (aged mean 54.0, mean score of 24.6 points on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, MoCA) with fall experience (faller group) and 15 persons (aged mean 53.7, mean score of 24.7 points on the MoCA) without fall experience (non-faller group) in the previous six months. This study measured balance and gait performance at two different conditions (with/without 70% of water filled in a 200 cc cup). The participants were clinically assessed using the 10-meter walk test (10MWT), 6-minute walk test (6MWT), Berg Balance scale (BBS), Dynamic Gait Index (DGI), and Timed Up-and-Go (TUG) test. Results: After analyzation, persons in the faller group performed significantly better on the 10MWT, 6MWT, BBS, DGI, and the TUG test in the no-cup-carrying condition than those in the cup-carrying condition (p<0.05). The persons in the non-faller group also performed significantly better in all outcome measures with the no-cup-carrying condition than those in the cup-carrying condition (p<0.05). However, there was no interaction between fall experience and task complexity in the two groups. Conclusions: Our results showed that balance and gait performance depended on fall experience and task complexity but fall experience did not interact with task complexity. Clinicians should consider fall prevention and task complexity during therapeutic approaches in persons with hemiparetic stroke.

• PNF and Movement
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.233-244
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• 2020

Purpose: The study investigated pain and falls as psychological factors in Total Knee Replacement patients and examined the relationship between these factors. Methods: Ninety-six total knee replacement patients aged 69.31±7.01 (male: 21, female: 75) participated in the study. Post-surgery pain was assessed on a visual analog scale, and fall risk scores were evaluated on fall fear and fall efficacy scales. Other psychological factors assessed included national anxiety and trail anxiety, fear prevention, Beck depression score, and psychological health measures. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 22.0. Results: A statistically significant correlation was found between pain before surgery and FES fall fear score before surgery (p < 0.05). A statistically significant correlation was found between pain after surgery and PWBS fall fear score after surgery (p < 0.05). A statistically significant correlation was found between state anxiety and PWBS, Trail anxiety (p < 0.05). A statistically significant correlation was also found between trail anxiety and BDI, PWBS (p < 0.05). State anxiety and fear avoidance before surgery were found to affect trail anxiety, and pain before surgery and fall fear score before surgery were found to affect FES. In addition, PWBS was found to affect BDI. Conclusion: The study confirms that increased pain in Total Knee Replacement patients can be a risk factor for falls. In addition, fall fears increase fear avoidance and cause psychological deterioration. This suggests that efforts should be made to reduce pain and to manage psychological factors.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.384-391
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• 2023

Among the elderly, fatal injuries and deaths are significantly attributed to falls. Therefore, a pre-impact fall detection system is necessary for injury prevention. In this study, a robust threshold-based algorithm was proposed for pre-impact fall detection, reducing false positives in highly dynamic daily-living movements. The algorithm was validated using public datasets (KFall and FARSEEING) that include the real-world elderly fall. A 6-axis IMU sensor (Movella Dot, Movella, Netherlands) was attached to S2 of 20 healthy adults (aged 22.0±1.9years, height 164.9±5.9cm, weight 61.4±17.1kg) to measure 14 activities of daily living and 11 fall movements at a sampling frequency of 60Hz. A 5Hz low-pass filter was applied to the IMU data to remove high-frequency noise. Sum vector magnitude of acceleration and angular velocity, roll, pitch, and vertical velocity were extracted as feature vector. The proposed algorithm showed an accuracy 98.3%, a sensitivity 100%, a specificity 97.0%, and an average lead-time 311±99ms with our experimental data. When evaluated using the KFall public dataset, an accuracy in adult data improved to 99.5% compared to recent studies, and for the elderly data, a specificity of 100% was achieved. When evaluated using FARSEEING real-world elderly fall data without separate segmentation, it showed a sensitivity of 71.4% (5/7).

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.210-228
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• 2002

Background: The purpose of this research was to examine the fall incidence rate and its related factors of fall in inpatients. Methods: The data were collected from the 138 fall incident reports in one tertiary hospital in Seoul from April 1st 1999 to September 30th 2001. The Fall Incident Report Form was originally developed based on that of Massachusetts General Hospital revised in 1995. And this was modified for this survey by the collaborating work of QI team including researcher and department of nursing service of this particular hospital. The contents of Fall Incident Form were general characteristics of patient. factors related to fall. types and places of fall. circumstances, nursing interventions. and outcome. Results: 1) The incidence rate of fall was 0.08% of total discharged patients and 0.081 per 1000 patient-day. This incidence rate is much lower than that of several hospitals in USA. This finding might result from the different incidence report system of each hospital. 2) The characteristics of fall-prone patient were found as follows. They were mostly over 60 years old, in alert mental status, ambulatory with some assistance, and dependent on ambulatory device. The types of diseases related high incidence rate were cerebrovascular disease(3.2), hypertension(1.6), cardiovascular disease(1.4), diabetes(1.3) and liver disease(0.6). 3) The majority of fall events usually occurred m bed. bedside(walking or standing) and bathroom in patient room. Usually they were up on their own when they fell. And there were more falls of elderly occurred during night time than day or evening. 4) 63.8% of fall events resulted in physical injuries such as fracture and usually the patients had diagnostic procedures and some treatment(ex. suture) which caused additional cost to the patients and their families. 5) The found risk factors of fall were drugs(antihypertensive drug, diuretics) and environmental factors like too high bed height, long distance of bedside table and lamp switch, and slippery tile of bathroom floor. Conclusion: Considering these results, every medical and nursing staff should be aware of the risk factors of patients in hospital, and should intervene more actively the preventive managements, specially for the elderly patients during night. Therefore, it is recommended that the development of Fall Prevention Programs based on these results.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.197-205
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• 2007

Lifeboats of vessels are necessary for protection of seafarer's safety. However, many accidents have been happened during free-fall type lifeboat drills on board a ship. The aim of this study describes IMO's efforts and some solutions against constructional problem of lifeboats regulated by the provisions of the SOLAS Convention for prevention of accidents with lifeboats and provides information for revising national laws in accordance with the revision of the International Conventions such as SOLAS and STCW.