• Title/Summary/Keyword: Older Populations

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Healthcare Considerations for Special Populations during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Review

  • Kim, Jeung-Im;Im, YeoJin;Song, Ju-Eun;Jang, Sun Joo
    • Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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    • v.51 no.5
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    • pp.511-524
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    • 2021
  • The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has emerged as a threat to human health and public safety. People of all ages are susceptible to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection. However, the clinical manifestations of this infection differ by age. This study purposes to describe healthcare considerations for special populations, such as children, pregnant and lactating women, and older adults, who may have unique healthcare needs, in the pandemic situation. To realize the research purpose, we conducted a review of the practice guidelines of public documents and qualified studies that were published online/offline during a specific period. The review identified current knowledge on care for newborns, children in schools, pregnant women (from antenatal to postpartum care), and older adults suffering from high-risk conditions. Subsequently, we summarize vaccination guidance for special populations and, finally, discuss the issues currently affecting special populations. Therefore, this current knowledge on care for special populations helps nurses to provide accurate information on vaccinations aimed at preventing COVID-19 and protecting the masses from infection. Currently, the scarcity of information on COVID-19 variants necessitates further research on measures to reduce pandemic spread.

THE H$\beta$ INDEX AND THE AGES OF OLD STELLAR SYSTEMS

  • Yoon, Seok-Jin;Lee, Hyun-Chul;Lee, Young-Wook
    • Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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    • v.15 no.1
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    • pp.53-58
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    • 1998
  • The $H{\beta}$ and some metal line indices, such as Mg2, Fe52 of single-age and single-metallicity populations are computed based on the method of evolutionary population synthesis, with careful consideration of the variation of the horizontal-branch morphology with metallicity and age. We find (a) that while metal lines are little af-fected, the $H{\beta}$ index is severely enhanced (up to 30%)by the presence of the blue horizontal-branch stars, frustrating the current age-estimations from this index with out careful consideration of these stars, and (b) that there is a systematic trend in the sense that the globular clusters in giant elliptical galaxies appear to be older than those in our Galaxy by several billion years. We also calculate these indices for the stellar populations with a metallicity spread, by adopting metallicity distribution functions predicted by chemical evolution models. The comparison of the models with the observed indices of the central regions of the early-type galaxies yields the results (a) that the ages of the giant elliptical galaxies would be older than the previous estimations by several billion years, and (b) that there is a considerable age spread among elliptical galaxies, in the sense that the giant elliptical galaxies are older than small ones.

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Importance of Food Therapy Application Development for Older Populations under Medically Unexplained Symptoms (아건강 (亞健康) 고령 소비자를 위한 치유식 앱 개발의 중요성)

  • Park, Dong Sam;Ju, Hyun-Mok;Jeong, Bo Mi;Kwon, Ki Han
    • Smart Media Journal
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    • v.6 no.1
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    • pp.30-38
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    • 2017
  • Medically Unexplained Symptoms (MUS) are cases of symptoms of the disease which are no reasons of cause of illness. The patients of MUS have been treated with cognitive behavioral therapy. Food Art Therapy (FAT) is subtype of Art Therapy which is kind of cognitive behavioral therapy. The patients of MUS will be satisfied by preparing and untaking foods. Through development of smart phone, the supply of smart phone in older populations have dramatically increased. But, the use of a smart phone or a very low. The importance of smart phone application development will been introduced wild vegetables of Korean traditional medical book for elderly patients in MUS. The patients will be increased confidence by making foods and intakeing food will be effective to prevent the disease.

Prevalence Rates and Risk Factors of Non-Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus in Minorities in the United States

  • Sohn, Ae-Ree
    • Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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    • v.2 no.1
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    • pp.97-114
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    • 2000
  • Minority populations in the United States have a higher prevalence of non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) and more persons die of the disease than white persons. This study was to review and compare risk factors and prevalence rates of NIDDM in African Americans, Hispanic s, Korean Americans and Native Americans in the United States. The risk factors of NIDDM, including family history of diabetes, obesity, physical inactivity, diet and age, were reviewed in the minority populations. Risk factors such as obesity, physical inactivity and family history of diabetes occurred to a greater extent in some minority populations than in the white population. Diabetes should be treated as a public health problem for minority populations. Due to the increase of older populations and the increased prevalence of obesity and sedentariness, NIDDM in minorities is nearing epidemic proportions. Good diet and regular exercise can reduce the incidence of NIDDM but an understanding of the cultural aspects of diabetes is imperative in order to provide adequate community health education programs because those programs involve diet and behavior changes, characteristics that are often culturally determined. In summary, it is important to plan a community health education program targeted on NIDDM in a culturally adapted manner that will be received with both comprehension and acceptability. In particular, the program for high-risk populations should be stressed so to prevent diabetes. Preventive approaches to diabetes should be considered because they can be both therapeutic and cost effective.

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Transitional Care for Older Adults with Chronic Illnesses as a Vulnerable Population: Theoretical Framework and Future Directions in Nursing

  • Son, Youn-Jung;You, Mi-Ae
    • Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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    • v.45 no.6
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    • pp.919-927
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    • 2015
  • Purpose: Effective transitional care is needed to improve the quality of life in older adult patients with chronic illness and avoid discontinuity of care and adverse events. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the key features, broader implications, and the utility of Meleis' transition theory intended for the transitional care of older adults with chronic illnesses. We present the role of nurse in the context of transitional care and propose future directions to increase the quality of nursing care. Methods: The online databases Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, MEDLINE, and Science Direct were searched for relevant literature published since 1970 along with textbooks regarding nursing theory. Results: An evaluation of the usefulness of transition theory based on transitional care in older adult patients with chronic illnesses is provided. Healthy transition should be the expected standard of nursing care for older adults across all healthcare settings. Conclusion: Nurses need to contribute to the development of transitional care for vulnerable populations; however, transition theory needs to be enhanced through additional theoretical work and repeated evaluations of the applicability in areas of transitional care.

Nutritional Assessment of the Older Population: Practical Application and Limitation

  • Yoon, Jin-Sook
    • Journal of Community Nutrition
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    • v.2 no.1
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    • pp.36-49
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    • 2000
  • Evaluation of nutritional status is an essential element in providing appropriate intervention strategies to achieve the highest level of health, Nutritional assessment of the older population is complicated by many factors which do not significantly affect the nutritional status in young adults, therefore, it should be considered in two ways; community-dwelling elders group and hospitalized or institutionalized elderly group. To sort out the individuals with nutritional problems in a community efficiently, nutrition screening tools must be simple, relatively inexpensive, and applicable to a large number of subjects. Combination of tools and indicators such as 24-hour food recall, body weight and height, and questionnaires on eating practices, and the presence of chronic diseases is practically applicable as basic tools of nutritional screening of older age group. However, the lack of validated screening techniques remains a barrier in improving nutrition. Validation is only limited to energy, BMI, protein intake of the older populations living in western countries. Further refinement of nutritional assessment tools is demanded to figure out whether those are practically applicable to community-living older adults in Asian Society. A careful and systematic evaluation of nutritional assessment tools should be carried out prior to implementation of stepwise nutrition service to the heterogeneous older population. For an in-depth nutritional assessment at the individual level, we need to extend research efforts to clarify the requirements of nutrients due to aging and diseases. More cost-effective method that will allow rapid analysis of survey results are needed so that information can be readily available to policymakers.

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Association of milk and dairy product consumption with the incidence of cardio-cerebrovascular disease incidence in middle-aged and older Korean adults: a 16-year follow-up of the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study

  • Yeseung Jeong;Kyung Won Lee;Hyekyeong Kim;Yuri Kim
    • Nutrition Research and Practice
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    • v.17 no.6
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    • pp.1225-1237
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    • 2023
  • BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Unhealthy dietary behaviors constitute one of risk the factors for chronic and cardiovascular diseases, which are prevalent in middle-aged and older populations. Milk and dairy products are high-quality foods and important sources of calcium. Calcium protects against osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease. Therefore, this study investigated the association of milk and dairy product consumption with cardio-cerebrovascular disease incidence in middle-aged and older Korean adults. SUBJECTS/METHODS: Data were derived from the Ansan-Anseong cohort study, and a total of 8,009 individuals aged 40-69 years were selected and followed up biennially. Cox proportional hazard models were used to examine the association of milk and dairy product consumption with cardio-cerebrovascular disease incidence. RESULTS: During a mean follow-up period of 96.5 person-months, 552 new cases of cardio-cerebrovascular disease were documented. Milk consumers (< 1 serving/day) exhibited a 23% lower risk of cardio-cerebrovascular disease incidence than non-milk consumers (hazard ratio [HR], 0.77; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.61-0.97; P for trend = 0.842). High yogurt consumption was associated with a 29% lower incidence risk (≥ 0.5 servings/day vs. none: HR, 0.71; 95% CI, 0.53-0.96; P for trend = 0.049), whereas high ice cream consumption was associated with a 70% higher risk of cardio-cerebrovascular disease incidence (≥ 0.5 servings/day vs. none: HR, 1.70; 95% CI, 1.01-2.88; P for trend = 0.070). CONCLUSIONS: This study indicates that less than one serving of milk and high yogurt consumption are associated with a lower cardio-cerebrovascular disease risk in the middle-aged and older populations.

Geriatric Dwelling Depression Measurement Based on Projective Image Analysis Modeling

  • Lee, Yewon;Park, Chongwook;Woo, Sungju
    • International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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    • v.6 no.4
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    • pp.323-330
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    • 2018
  • The growth of the older population is expected to further increase social problems associated with population aging, such as isolation, poverty, and depression. The emerging issues associated with the older population are also expected to provide further momentum on studies about the dwelling environment as factors that ensure the health of older people as well as improve their quality of life. Therefore, approaches for explaining the issues of the older age group should be diversified using a variety of factors and appropriate analytic tools. Studies on measuring depression have principally focused on assessing an objective self-report questionnaire, usually in a highly structured, textual form which may not reflect the cognitive impairment of older adults. The aim of this study was to define and measure dwelling depression among older adults in Korea. There are two specific hypotheses in this study as follows: (a) there will be statistically significant relationships with dwelling dissatisfaction and depression, and (b) dwelling depression tools containing text and images will be, respectively, assessment tools that have a good construct with content validity and reliability. In the first experiment, to define and measure dwelling depression, 301 people over 65 years old living in single and two-person households were surveyed using a text-based dwelling depression questionnaires from September 1-30, 2017. In the second experiment, to examine whether the projective image questionnaire could serve as a suitable replacement for the text-based questionnaires, the same participants were surveyed from January 22 to February 2, 2018. The results show that depression has a close correlation with dwelling dissatisfaction. In addition, the geriatric dwelling depression index (GDDI) based on the projective image was refined. Additionally, the projective image questionnaire has a close correlation with the text-based questionnaire. Finally, through ROC curve analysis, it was found that the projective image questionnaire can accurately predict a depression group. To this end, this preliminary study examined the validity of the projective image questionnaire in older adults to make this instrument feasible for older populations and to contribute to a profound understanding of geriatric depression due to the living environment. We hope they will provide a basis for further research on psychological diagnoses using projective images.

Screening Sarcopenia in Rural Community-Dwelling Older Adults in Korea

  • KIM, Mi-Kyoung;LEE, Ji-Yeon;GIL, Cho-Rong;KIM, Bo-Ram;CHANG, Hee-Kyung
    • International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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    • v.8 no.4
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    • pp.64-76
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    • 2020
  • Purpose: Several screening tools have been developed to identify sarcopenia in rural community-dwelling older adults. We aimed to compare the diagnostic accuracy of two such tools, namely the SARC-F and SARC-CalF assessments. Methods: This cross-sectional study on 388 community-dwelling older adults comprised 254 women and 134 men with a mean age of 77.8 ± 6.26 year in Korea. We assessed muscle mass, muscle strength, and physical performance using a bioimpedance analysis device, hydraulic hand dynamometer, and 4 m gait speed test, respectively. Three widely-used diagnostic criteria [the Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia (AWGS), European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People, and the International Working Group on Sarcopenia] were applied. Sensitivity and specificity analyses were performed on the SARC-CalF and SARC-F tests. We used receiver-operating characteristic curves and the area under the curves (AUCs) to compare the diagnostic accuracy of the assessments with regard to sarcopenia. Results: An analysis using four sets of diagnostic criteria showed that the prevalence of sarcopenia was 27.6% to 41.0%. Using the AWGS 2019 criteria as a reference standard, the SARC-CalF had a sensitivity of 83.02% and a specificity of 53.71% in the entire study population, whereas the SARC-F had a sensitivity of 79.87% and a specificity of 41.92%. The AUCs for the SARC-CalF and SARC-F tests were 0.725 (95% confidence interval 0.678-0.769) and 0.645 (95% confidence interval 0.595-0.693), respectively (p<001). In the analyses using the other three diagnostic criteria, similarity was also confirmed. Conclusion: SARC-CalF showed better sensitivity than did SARC-F when diagnosing sarcopenia in rural community-dwelling older adults. Further studies are needed to verify this finding in different populations.

The rise and fall of dusty star formation in (proto-)clusters

  • Lee, Kyung-Soo
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.44 no.2
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    • pp.38.1-38.1
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    • 2019
  • The formation and evolution of galaxies is known to be fundamentally linked to the local environment in which they reside. In the highest-density cluster environments, galaxies tend to be more massive, have lower star formation rates and dust content, and a higher fraction have elliptical morphologies. The stellar populations of these cluster galaxies are older implying that they formed the bulk of their stars much earlier and have since evolved passively. Quantifying the specific environmental factors that contribute to shaping cluster galaxies over the Hubble time and measuring their early evolution can only be accomplished by directly tracing the galaxy growth in young clusters and forming porto-clusters. In this talk, I will present a novel technique designed to map out the total dust obscured star formation relative to where existing stars lie. I will demonstrate that this technique can be used 1) to determine if/where/when the activity is heightened or suppressed in dense cluster environment; 2) to measure the total mass and spatial distribution of stellar populations; and 3) to better inform theoretical models. Our ongoing work to extend this analysis out to protoclusters (z~2-4) will be discussed.

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