• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.8
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• pp.232-237
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• 2013

A newly developed fall detection algorithm using the HMM (Hidden Markov Model) extracted from the video is introduced. To distinguish between the fall from personal difference fall pattern or the normal activities of daily living (ADL), HMM machine learning algorithm is used. For getting fall feature vector of video, the motion vector from the optical flow is applied to the PCA (Principal Component Analysis). The combination of the angle, ratio of long-short axis, velocity from results of PCA make the new fall feature parameters. These parameters were applied to the HMM and the results were compared and analyzed. Among the newly proposed various kinds of fall parameters, the angle of movement showed the best results. The results show that this parameter can distinguish various types of fall from ADLs with 91.5% sensitivity and 88.01% specificity.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.30-71
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• 1999

There has been a dramatic increase in public awareness regarding dementia during recent years. However, dementia remains a family affair and patients do not receive adequate care in Korea. This study aims to assist patients and their caregivers by establishing Home and Community based Long-Term Care in a city. The data collected for analysis include five main categories: dementia prevalence, limitations of daily activities of patients, burden of caregivers, the services that patient's family want to utilize, the resources that handle dementia in the community. Major findings can be summarized as follows: 1)The prevalence rate of dementia for elderly people is 13.1 per 100 persons. Alzheimer's disease amount to 38.9% of dementia patients and vascular dementia account for 36.7% of them 2)Eight out of ten patients have mild dementia. Almost all patients have normal ADL. IADL, however, shows different picture. In every items of IADL, about 60% of patients reveals some limitations. 3)The proportion of patients who had medical diagnosis is as low as 20%. Families of patients think dementia as normal aging process and medical doctors in the community do not give special concern to dementia patients. 4)Caregivers does not have proper social support. They suffer from long care time, experience large obstacles in respect of health, daily living, and social activity. 5)Health center and Community welfare center have launched some programs-consultation, home-visiting nursing, day care center, voluntary force mobilization and so on-for dementia patients. But they do not perform expected roles and functions because of lack of skilled personnels and inadequate coordination of relevant organizations for dementia care. 6)Families of dementia patients prefer home helper and home-visiting nurse to hospitalization. For the future, however, demand for institution-based long-term services will increase. We develope community dementia care model based on above findings as follows: 1)Health center execute community cardiovascular control program for the prevention of vascular dementia. 2)Refer to epidemiologic characteristics of patients and preference of family, the most urgent task for dementia care in this city is to expand and organize Home and Community based Long-Term Care. 3)For the continuous and comprehensive care, care plan for a patient must be prepared. Case management team should be builded to prepare this plan and coordinate relevant resources. 4)Special long-term care unit for dementia will be needed in a near future. This unit should have multiple functions, such as day-care center, short stay facility, training center for relevant personnels, besides long-term nursing home considering effective care of dementia and efficient operation of the facility. 5)Voluntary workers deserve their due efforts. Incentive mechanisms must be developed to activate voluntary activities.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.47-57
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• 2016

In this paper, we measured human body signals in order to verify a active harness system that we developed for gait and balance training. The experimental procedure was validated by tests with 20 healthy male subjects. They conducted motions of Activities of Daily Living(ADL)(Normal Walking, Stand-to-Sit, Sit-to-Stand, Stair Walking Up, and Stair Walking Down) according to body weight support rates (0%, 30%, 50% of subjects' body weight). The effectiveness of the active harness system is verified by using the results of foot pressure distribution. In normal walking, the decrease of fore-foot pressure, lateral soleus muscle and biceps femoris muscle were remarkable. The result of stand-to-sit results motion indicated that the rear-foot pressure and tibialis anterior muscle activities exceptionally decreased according to body weight support. The stair walking down show the marked drop of fore-foot pressure and rectus femoris muscle activities. The sit-to-stand and stair walking up activities were inadequate about the effect of body weight support because the velocity of body weight support system was slower than male's activity.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.289-297
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• 2013

The destination of this study is a convenience sample of 301 people age 65 and older to use each one elderly welfare center D, M received a structured questionnaire for one-on-one interviews with the subjects to read all the questions and questionnaire was written. The depressed group and the normal group, identify the general characteristics, the ADL, and sleep, and the difference between the two groups, and relative risk were analyzed. The results of the study are as follows: Showed depressed group compared to normal group was the low level of ability to perform daily living, sleep well, not more than the ability to perform daily living, dressing, bowel and bladder management, and complained of the difficulty to perform instrumental activities of daily living ability of grooming, more difficult to appeal to public transportation, shopping. In conclusion, elderly health promotion strategy when you want to take into account whether or not the depression of the elderly will require the development of a variety of education and physical activity programs, and suggest the need for expanded research to determine the effectiveness.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.29 no.2 s.53
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• pp.199-214
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• 1996

To investigate the factors which affecting the cognitive function and depression of the 65 or more age group, the authors surveyed for the subjects in the region of Taejon and nearby Taejon area. 729 studied subjects were tested for cognitive function with MMSE and depression with GDS. The main results were followings; In the studied subjects, the rate of normal cognitive function was 56.8%, the rate of mildly impaired was 24.1% and the rate of severe impairment was 19.1%. The cognitive function level was closely related to the depression score. As the age increased, the cognitive function was more impaired. Sexual difference was also existed in the cognitive function level and the depression score. After adjusting the effect of age, the variables such as sex, marital status, education level, past job, instrumental ability of daily living, regular physical exercise, frequencies of going out the house, chest discomfort, visual and auditory disturbance, and dizziness had the significant relationship with cognitive function impairment. Among these variables instrumental ADL, age, visual disturbance, and sex showed statistical significance in the logistic regression model. In the multiple stepwise regression, the variables which had significant relationship to depression score were education level, frequencies of going out house, current job and house work activity, regular physical exercise, instrumental ADL, self-rated health and nutritional status, dimness, visual disturbance, and chest pain. In conclusion, main characteristics which had close relationship to the cognitive function and depression symptoms in the studied subjects were physical function and self rated health status.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.167-182
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• 2005

Objectives: This study was performed to investigate the prevalence of knee osteoarthritis according to the criteria of diagnosing knee osteoarthritis in rural women and the factors related with this disease. Methods: The data obtained from 200 women older than 40 years of age residing in 5 Ri's in Goryeong-gun. Gyeongsanbuk-do by random cluster sampling from September to October 2002. Knee osteoarthritis was determined positive according to the Kellgren and Lawrence classification and knee pain. Results: Among these subjects, 71.0% showed more than grade 2 in radiologic finding and the rate of knee pain according to the survey was 67.0%. The rate of subjects meeting the criteria of knee osteoarthritis was 54.0%. According to univariate analysis, the prevalence of knee osteoarthritis increased with age and those farming people and people working in household industry was significantly high at 58.9% compared with others. The prevalence of knee osteoarthritis showed a significant relationship with the family history and past history of knee injury and knee surgery(p<0.01), and diabetes mellitus(p<0.05). The score of ADL was significantly different in the subjects with knee osteoarthritis compared with normal group(p<0.05). When the presence of knee osteoarthritis and the period of the life style of seating down on the floor were compared, a significant difference was present between the osteoarthritis group and normal group. As for metabolic factors, the blood sugar level, bone density, and body mass index(BMI) were significantly different in the osteoarthritis group compared with normal group. When multiple logistic regression analysis was performed with the presence of knee osteoarthritis as the dependent variable, the prevalence of knee osteoarthritis was significantly affected by older age, subjects farming or working in household industry, the history of knee injury, the history of surgery, higher blood sugar level, and higher BMI. Conclusions: These subjects need an intervention through self-care programs such as exercise for preventing osteoarthritis, weight control programs, other exercise programs strengthening knee joints, and guidelines when working in vinyl houses.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.223-235
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• 2004

Objectives: This study was to evaluate the actual condition of falls among community-dwelling elderly people and its related factors to prepare for the establishment of comprehensive prevention programs of senior population. Methods: The study subjects included 460 home residents over 65 years in a district of Chungnam Province and interviews were given to all of them, asking about experiences of falls and their related factors. The analysis of study results came to the following conclusions. Results: The rate of falls among total subjects was 35.5%. With the percentage by age and sex, over 70's and female were significantly higher than male(p=0.000) and under 69 (p=0.008). The groups with poor visual acuity and hearing ability had higher rate of falls than the normal groups based on their health status. In terms of place they experienced falls, out-door occurrence accounted for 53.4% of total falls, which was higher 46.6% of in-door. By season when falls are experienced, "winter" showed the greatest rate, and by time of the day, evening had the highest rate. By causes of falls, "Slippery ground"accounted for 30.5% and "Tumbled over" 23.5% of total falls, respectively, showing the major role of environmental causes for falls. For individual factors, "Irritability" and "Carelessness" occupied 11.3%, 10.8% of total falls, respectively. The Odds Ratios for falls in women was 2.19 times higher than in men, and those in 70's are 2.01 times higher than in 60's, and those with abnormal BMI was 3.68 times higher than in normal groups, and those with perceived symptoms was 1.94 times higher than those without. Conclusions: It is suggested that more consideration should be directed toward taking comprehensive and systematic prevention measures ranging from setting-up the injury-protective environments to allowing senior citizens to have competence in ADL activity as well as proper general health conditions, considering the higher rate of falls for elderly persons in a rural part of this country than that of western countries and the greater proportion of falls which can be ascribed to environmental factors.