• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.232-238
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• 2011

Objectives Optimized voxel based morphometry (VBM) has been increasingly applied to investigate differences in the brain morphology between a group of patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and control subjects. Optimized VBM permits comparison of gray matter (GM) volume at voxel-level from the entire brain. The purpose of this study was to assess the regional GM volume change measured by optimized VBM in MCI subjects compared to controls. Methods Twenty patients with MCI and 20 control subjects with normal cognition were recruited for this study. We applied the optimized VBM protocol to the image data including study-specific template and the modulation of the data with the Jacobian determinants. GM volume differences between the MCI subjects and the control subjects and their correlations with the neuropsychological performances were investigated. Results Optimized VBM analysis revealed GM volume reduction in hippocampus, precentral gyrus, insula and parietal operculum in the MCI group compared to the control group (family wise error corrected p < 0.05). Korean version of the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's disease (CERAD-K) word list recall scores were significantly correlated with the GM volumes of hippocampus, precuneus and posterior cingulate in the MCI group (FWE corrected p < 0.05). Conclusions The results confirm previous findings of atrophic changes in medial temporal lobe and parietal lobe in the MCI group and suggest that these abnormalities may be related with cognitive decline and prognosis in patients with MCI.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.175-186
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• 2019

Objective: Non-specific chronic low back pain (NS-CLBP) has been related to abnormal trunk muscle activations, but literature reported considerable variability in muscle amplitudes of NS-CLBP patients during prolonged sitting periods. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the differences among homogenous NS-CLBP subgroups in muscle activity, using muscle co-contraction indices as a more objective approach, and their roles on pain development during a 1-hour period of prolonged sitting. Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: Twenty NS-CLBP subjects with motor control impairment (MCI) [10 classified as having flexion pattern disorder, and 10 with active extension pattern disorder], and 10 healthy controls participated in the study. Subjects followed a 1-hour sitting protocol on a standard office chair. Four trunk muscle activities including amplitudes and co-contraction indices were recorded using electromyography over the 1-hour period. Perceived back pain intensity was recorded using a numeric pain rating scale every 10 minutes throughout the sitting period. Results: All study groups presented with no significantly distinctive trunk muscle activities at the beginning of sitting, nor did they change over time when pain increased to a significant level. Both MCI subgroups reported a similarly significant increase in pain behavior through mid-sitting (p<0.001). However, after mid-sitting, they significantly differed from each other in pain (p<0.01) but did not differ in the levels of muscle activation. Conclusions: This study was the first to highlight the similarities in trunk muscle activities among homogenous NS-CLBP patients related to MCI and compared them to healthy controls while sitting for an extended period of time, and the significant increase in pain over the 1-hour sitting might not be attributed to trunk muscle activation.

• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.121-135
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• 2022

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop a training protocol to standardize the management of mass casualties as part of the disaster response, and to verify the effectiveness of the training protocol. Methods: The study was conducted as a quasi-experimental study with a non-equivalent control group and pretest-posttest design. The protocol was divided into 5 parts, the first for the advance party, the second for the rescue team, the third for the paramedic team, the fourth for the ambulance team, and the fifth for the 119 EMS team. This study was conducted on November 15, 2021 and consisted of 21 subjects in the final experimental group and 23 subjects in the control group. In this study, the prior homogeneity test was analyzed using the χ²-test, intragroup comparisons were analyzed using the paired t-test, and intragroup comparisons were analyzed using the independent t-test. Results: The protocol was developed in five parts: advance party, rescue team, paramedics team, ambulance team, and 119 EMS team. In verifying the effectiveness of the protocol, it was found that there were significant differences in self-efficacy (t=-0.941, p=0.001) and self confidence within the group (t=-0.025, p=0.001) after the implementation of the mass casualty incident response training program. However, there was no significant difference between the experimental and control groups. Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, it is believed that disaster response personnel can experience lower levels of anxiety and tension in disaster situations if they receive practical and realistic education and training. In the future, it is necessary to enhance protocol based practical education that can improve the knowledge and skills of each team and individual.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1207-1212
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• 2022

Realistic media, the next-generation media technology in the era of the 4th industrial revolution, is becoming an issue as a technology to experience through an environment that optimizes user experience, especially! It is rapidly developing into the health and healthcare convergence and complex fields. Realistic media technologies and services are being adopted to solve the problems of the increase in chronic diseases due to the increase in the elderly population and the lack of infrastructure and professional manpower in the fields of cognitive training and rehabilitation. Therefore, in this study, a cognitive training system was designed and implemented for the purpose of improving cognitive ability and daily life activity in subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) who require cognitive rehabilitation. In the future, an integrated service platform with interactive communication and immediate feedback as an intelligent cognitive rehabilitation integrated platform based on AI and BigData is left as a research project.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.1345-1354
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• 2020

Objective: To evaluate radiomics analysis in studies on mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) using a radiomics quality score (RQS) system to establish a roadmap for further improvement in clinical use. Materials and Methods: PubMed MEDLINE and EMBASE were searched using the terms 'cognitive impairment' or 'Alzheimer' or 'dementia' and 'radiomic' or 'texture' or 'radiogenomic' for articles published until March 2020. From 258 articles, 26 relevant original research articles were selected. Two neuroradiologists assessed the quality of the methodology according to the RQS. Adherence rates for the following six key domains were evaluated: image protocol and reproducibility, feature reduction and validation, biologic/clinical utility, performance index, high level of evidence, and open science. Results: The hippocampus was the most frequently analyzed (46.2%) anatomical structure. Of the 26 studies, 16 (61.5%) used an open source database (14 from Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative and 2 from Open Access Series of Imaging Studies). The mean RQS was 3.6 out of 36 (9.9%), and the basic adherence rate was 27.6%. Only one study (3.8%) performed external validation. The adherence rate was relatively high for reporting the imaging protocol (96.2%), multiple segmentation (76.9%), discrimination statistics (69.2%), and open science and data (65.4%) but low for conducting test-retest analysis (7.7%) and biologic correlation (3.8%). None of the studies stated potential clinical utility, conducted a phantom study, performed cut-off analysis or calibration statistics, was a prospective study, or conducted cost-effectiveness analysis, resulting in a low level of evidence. Conclusion: The quality of radiomics reporting in MCI and AD studies is suboptimal. Validation is necessary using external dataset, and improvements need to be made to feature reproducibility, feature selection, clinical utility, model performance index, and pursuits of a higher level of evidence.