• Health Policy and Management
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.37-63
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• 2010

Public expenditures on long-term care are a matter of concern for Korea as in many other countries. The expenditure is expected to accelerate and to put pressure on public budgets, adding to that arising from insufficient retirement schemes and other forms of social spending. This study tried to foresee how much health care spending could increase in the future considering demographic and non-demographic factors as the drivers of expenditure. Previous projections of future long-term expenditure were mainly based on a given relation between spending and age structure. However, although demographic factors will surely put upward pressure on long-term care costs, other non-demographic factors, such as labor cost increase and availability of informal care, should be taken into account as well. Also, the possibility of dynamic link between health status and longevity gains needs to be considered. The model in this study is cell-base and consists of three main parts. The first part estimated the numbers of elderly people with different levels of health status by age group, gender, household type. The second part estimated the levels of long-term care services required, by attaching a probability of receiving long-term care services to each cell using from the sample from current year. The third part of the model estimated long-term care expenditure, along the demographic and non-demographic factors' change in various scenarios. Public spending on long-term care could rise from the current level of 0.2~0.3% of GDP to around 0.44~2.30% by 2040.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.90-100
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• 2013

Background: This study examined the relationships of dementia, stroke, and combined multimorbidity with long-term care utilizations among older people in South Korea. Methods: A nationally representative sample of 10,130 older adults who used long-term care services in 2010 were analyzed. We used the 5% sample of aged 65 years or older linked with National Health Insurance Corporation registry data of long-term care insurance system. The sample was categorized into three groups: dementia only (47.6%), stroke only (36.3%), and both dementia and stroke (16.1%). We estimated the use of institutional care, home care, and total expenditure of long-term care services, adjusting for the severity of each function (such as daily life, behavior or cognitive change, nursing care needs, and rehabilitation care needs) and sociodemographic characteristics. Results: Having dementia symptoms was positively associated with the use of institutional care services, on the other hand, having stroke symptoms was positively related with the use of home care. The total long-term care cost was higher in the group of having both dementia and stroke. Conclusion: Older persons with dementia symptoms and stroke symptoms have different patterns of long-term care utilization, and the multimorbidity increased the overall expenditure of long-term care utilization. These findings imply a need for differentiated management strategy targeting physically and cognitively impaired older persons, and special concerning for persons with multimorbidity conditions for long-term care insurance program in Korea.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.15-25
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to examine relations among the subjective oral symptoms, masticatory performance and life quality of aged people residing in some regions of a large city, ultimately providing basic information needed to develop and implement programs oral health project and oral health education programs for the oral health promotion of those people. For the above purpose, this researcher conducted a questionnaire survey of people aged 65 or over from July 14th to 30th, 2011. Among the copies of the questionnaire distributed to the subjects, 318 were recollected. Out the recollected forms, 18 which were deemed as in appropriately filled in were excluded, and the remaining 300 were finally analyzed. The results are as follows. Subjective oral symptoms and masticatory performance have correlation(p<0.001) with aged people's life quality. Factors of influencing life quality were indicated to be gender(p=0.046), age(p=0.008), appearance of living together(<0.001), masticatory performance(p<0.001), and temperature reaction(p=0.018). This study has limitation because of being information that was obtained just with questionnaire survey on subjective oral symptoms. It is considered that there is a need of surveying along with objective data on oral symptoms hereafter.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.376-382
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• 2013

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to identify the virucidal efficacy against the viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV) of an aquatic disinfectant tablet composed of calcium hypochlorite. Methods: Virucidal efficacy was determined through the viability of VHSV contacted with the disinfectant in a viral stock cultured in a fathead minnow cell line. An aquatic disinfectant tablet and VHSV were reacted under distilled water (DW), hard water (HW) or organic matter suspension (OM) conditions. Results: Under DW and HW conditions, VHSV was inactivated with 24,000- and 2000-fold dilutions of the aquatic disinfectant tablet, respectively. With the investigation of the antiviral effect of the disinfectant under OM conditions, VHSV was inactivated with a 16,000-fold dilution of the aquatic disinfectant tablet. Conclusions: The results from this study showed that the aquatic disinfectant tablet was a highly effective disinfectant against VHSV. In the future, a controlled field trial is required to determine whether the use of an aquatic disinfectant tablet will be able to reduce VHSV in a cultured marine fish farm.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.116-124
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• 2017

Purpose: Burning mouth syndrome (BMS) is a disabling pain that mostly occurs in elderly women, but rarely in men. It is characterized by an unremitting oral burning sensation and pain without detectable oral mucosal changes. We investigated the clinical and hematologic features of middle-aged men with BMS, and compared the results to those of men with oral mucositis. Methods: Five men with BMS ($48.60{\pm}6.19years$) and five age-matched controls with oral mucositis ($49.80{\pm}15.26years$) underwent clinical and psychological evaluations and blood tests. Psychological status was evaluated using the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised. Cortisol, estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), and antidiuretic hormone (ADH) levels and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) were determined from the blood samples. Results: ADH level was significantly lower in men with BMS than in the controls. ADH levels correlated with testosterone (p<0.01), and ACTH levels strongly correlated with ESR (p<0.05). Progesterone level positively correlated with FSH and LH levels. Pain intensity on a visual analogue scale correlated with estradiol level only in men with BMS. Among psychological factors, the obsessive-compulsive disorder, interpersonal-sensitivity, and anxiety scores were higher in men with BMS than in the controls (p<0.05). However, no correlations were observed between the psychological and hematologic factors in both groups. The BMS symptoms presented only on the tongue, with the lateral border being the most prevalent area. Conclusions: Men with BMS may experience dysregulated endocrinologic or psychoneuroendocrinologic interactions, which might affect oral BMS symptoms, aggravating the severity of the burning sensation.

• Smart Media Journal
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.52-58
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• 2012

In recent years the combination of IT and BT for U-Healthcare Medical Services has attracted popular attention as an alternative for solving health problems due to aging issue. Active oxygen as free radicals causes unstable state of the body resulting to other disease on which approximate 90% of the diseases are associated with active oxygen. The severity is even higher along with increasing age. Therefore, there is a need for systematic management of active oxygen saturation for the elderly and chronic patients. In this paper, the data about active oxygen measurements from the body measurement is sent to the data storage of medical facilities by the service provider. Medical information is measured by devices provided complying with the standard, support and information using Bluetooth communication. Users can check their health status themselves using the proposed system through 3G/4G mobile devices like smart phone to medical institutions in which the smart phone act as a gateway for medical data transferred from patient to medical institutions and vice versa. Users can get and experience a diagnosis and effective U-Environmental Health Services from Medical institutions anywhere using the proposed built system.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.141-151
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• 2007

Parkinson's disease is one of the most frequent neurodegenerative diseases, which mainly affects the elderly. Parkinson's disease is often difficult to differentiate from atypical parkinson diorder such as progressive supranuclear palsy, multiple system atrophy, dementia with Lewy body, and corticobasal ganglionic degeneration, based on the clinical findings because of the similarity of phenotypes and lack of diagnostic markers. The accurate diagnosis of Parkinson's disease and atypical Parkinson disorders is not only important for deciding on treatment regimens and providing prognosis, but also it is critical for studies designed to investigate etiology and pathogenesis of parkinsonism and to develop new therapeutic strategies. Although degeneration of the nigrostriatal dopamine system results in marked loss of striatal dopamine content in most of the diseases causing parkinsonism, pathologic studies revealed different topographies of the neuronal cell loss in Parkisonism. Since the regional cerebral glucose metabolism is a marker of integrated local synaptic activity and as such is sensitive to both direct neuronal/synaptic damage and secondary functional disruption at synapses distant from the primary site of pathology, an assessment of the regional cerebral glucose metabolism with F-18 FDG PET is useful in the differential diagnosis of parkinsonism and evaluating the pathophysiology of parkisonism.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.161-168
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• 2021

In this paper, it is a system that informs people who take medication periodically to facilitate the convenience of the elderly and the disabled. It is a system that measures the full weight of pills that need to be taken for a week using a weight sensor, and then determines whether or not the pills are taken by measuring the weight of the reduced pills again when the user takes them. For people with disabilities who are unable to move, it includes the function of automatically transporting medicine to the user-set location at the time of use using a line tracer based autonomous vehicle. It is also configured to inform users who have not taken the pill through an alarm that includes visual and auditory functions at a specific time to inform them of this. This work attempts to help users take their medication without forgetting by segmenting the task performance process of such a system through simulations.

• Hip & pelvis
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.269-275
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• 2018

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe a method of inserting cement in the femoral head before fixation with dynamic hip screw to prevent screw cut out due to osteoporosis and to evaluate its clinical outcome in these patients. Materials and Methods: In this prospective study, 30 patients aged 60 years and older with intertrochanteric fracture were included. Bone mineral density was measured. After reaming of the femoral head and neck with a triple reamer and polymethyl methacrylate, bone cement was introduced into the femoral head using a customized nozzle and a barrel fitted on a cement gun. A Richard screw was inserted and the plate was fixed over the femoral shaft. Patients were mobilized and clinical outcomes were rated using the Salvati and Wilson's scoring system. Results: More patients included in this study were between 66 and 70 years old than any other age group. The most common fracture according to the Orthopaedic Trauma Association classification was type 31A2.2 (46.7%). The T-score was found to be $-2.506{\pm}0.22$ (mean${\pm}$standard deviation); all patients were within the range of -2.0 to -2.8. The duration of radiological union was $13.67{\pm}1.77$ weeks. Salvati and Wilson's scoring at 12 months of follow up was $30.96{\pm}4.97$. The majority of patients were able to perform their normal routine activities; none experienced implant failure or screw cut out. Conclusion: Bone cement augmentation may effectively prevent osteoporosis-related hardware complications like screw cut out in elderly patients experiencing intertrochanteric fractures.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2021

This review describes the risk factors of the nutrition crisis in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections and suggests precision nutrition against long-term psychological and physiological stress. The mandatory quarantine and the social distancing are associated with an interruption of the lifestyle routine, resulting in psychological (i.e., boredom) and physiological stress. The stress with multiple causes and forms induces over-compensation of energy-dense food, such as sugary comfort food, and is defined as "food craving" because carbohydrates positively affect the psychological stability with serotonin secretion. The consumption of foods that promote an immune response against viral infections (vitamins & minerals; Cu, folate, Fe, Se, Zn, and Vit A, B6, B12, C, and D), reduce inflammatory cytokines (w-3 fatty acids, Vit D, fibers, and Mg), contain antioxidants (beta-carotene, Vit E, C, Se, and phenolics), and sleep-inducing proteins (serotonin, melatonin, and milk products) is essential. In addition, a reduced Vit D deficiency in winter due to less time spent outdoors under quarantine has been reported to be associated with viral infections. The case fatality rate of COVID-19 was significantly dependent on age, sex, race, and underlying health condition. To prevent malnutrition and cachexia in elderly people, weight loss and muscle wasting should be monitored and controlled. Inadequate protein intake, sedentary lifestyle, and inflammation are significant risk factors for sarcopenia. Moreover, relatively high intakes of fat or carbohydrate compared to low protein intake result in abdominal obesity, which is defined as "sarcopenic obesity." Keeping the food-safety guidelines of COVID-19, this study recommends the consumption of fresh and healthy foods and avoiding sugar, fat, salt, alcohol, and commercially frozen foods.