• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.211-218
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• 2012

Objectives: The objective of this study was to identify the differences in obesity rates among people with and without disabilities, and evaluate the relationship between obesity rates and the existence of disabilities or characteristics of disabilities. Methods: Mass screening data from 2008 from the National Disability Registry and National Health Insurance (NHI) are used. For analysis, we classified physical disability into three subtypes: upper limb disability, lower limb disability, and spinal cord injury. For a control group, we extracted people without disabilities by each subtype. To adjust for the participation rate in the NHI mass screening, we calculated and adopted the weight stratified by sex, age, and grade of disability. Differences in obesity rates between people with and without disabilities were examined by a chi-squared test. In addition, the effect of the existence of disabilities and grade of disabilities on obesity was examined by multiple logistic regression analysis. Results: People with disabilities were found to have a higher obesity rate than those without disabilities. The obesity rates were 35.2% and 35.0% (people with disabilities vs. without disabilities) in the upper limb disability, 44.5% and 34.8% in the lower limb disability, 43.4% and 34.6% in the spinal cord injury. The odds for existence of physical disability and grade of disability are higher than the nondisabilities. Conclusions: These results show that people with physical disability have a higher vulnerability to obesity.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.24 no.7
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• pp.903-912
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• 2021

Eye tracking research for upper limb disabilities is showing an effect in the aspect of device control. However, the reality is that it is not enough to perform web interaction with only eye tracking technology. In the Eye-Voice interface, a previous study, in order to solve the problem that the existing gaze tracking interfaces cause a malfunction of pointer execution, a gaze tracking interface supplemented with a voice command was proposed. In addition, the reduction of the malfunction rate of the pointer was confirmed through a comparison experiment with the existing interface. In this process, the difficulty of pointing due to the small size of the execution object in the web environment was identified as another important problem of malfunction. In this study, we propose an auto-magnification interface of objects so that people with upper extremities can freely click web contents by improving the problem that it was difficult to point and execute due to the high density of execution objects and their arrangements in web pages.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.566-573
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• 2020

Computers are the most common tool when using the Internet and utilizing a mouse to select and execute objects. Eye tracking technology is welcomed as an alternative technology to help control computers for users who cannot use their hands due to their disabilities. However, the pointer execution method of the existing eye tracking technique causes many malfunctions. Therefore, in this paper, we developed a gaze tracking interface that combines voice commands to solve the malfunction problem when the upper limb disabled uses the existing gaze tracking technology to execute computer menus and objects. Usability verification was conducted through comparative experiments regarding the improvements of the malfunction. The upper limb disabled who are hand-impaired use eye tracking technology to move the pointer and utilize the voice commands, such as, "okay" while browsing the computer screen for instant clicks. As a result of the comparative experiments on the reduction of the malfunction of pointer execution with the existing gaze interfaces, we verified that our system, Eye-Voice, reduced the malfunction rate of pointer execution and is effective for the upper limb disabled to use.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.11 no.12
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• pp.5878-5904
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• 2017

This paper proposes a novel intelligent wheelchair vehicle system that enables upper limb exercises, lower limb standing exercises and rehabilitation training in a daily life. The proposed system, which can be used to prevent at least the degeneration of body movements and further atrophy of musculoskeletal system functions, considers the characteristics and mobility of the old and the disabled. Its main purpose is to help the old and the disabled perform their daily activities as much as they can, minimizing the extent of secondary disabilities. In other words, the system will provide the old and the disabled with regular and quantitative rehabilitation exercises and diagnosis using the wheelchair-based upper/lower limb rehabilitation vehicle system and then verify their effectiveness. The system comprises an electric wheelchair, a biometric module to identify individual characteristics, and an upper/lower limb rehabilitation vehicle. In this paper the design and configuration of the developed vehicle is described, and its operation method is presented. Moreover, to verify the tracking performance of the proposed system, dangerous situations according to biosignal changes occurring during the rehabilitation exercise of a non-disabled examinee are analyzed and the performance of the upper/lower limb rehabilitation exercise function depending on muscle strength is evaluated through a neural network algorithm.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.2862-2868
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between neck pain and upper limb disability in patients with non-specific neck pain (n=132) recruited from physiotherapy departments in the Korea. Baseline neck pain/disability was measured using the Northwick Park Neck Pain Questionnaire (NPQ) and upper limb disability was measured using the Disabilities of Arm, Shoulder, Hand questionnaire (DASH). A range of baseline psychosocial variables were measured as potential confounding variables. Pairwise analysis revealed a positive correlation between NPQ score and DASH score (Pearsons' r=0.628, p<0.05). This study provides preliminary evidence that patients with severe neck pain/disability also report severe upper limb disability. The presence of severe neck pain or low pain self efficacy and high fear-avoidence beliefs questionnaire should clinicians towards a careful examination of upper limb function in patients presenting with neck pain. Our data suggest the upper limb disability may need to be addressed as part of the neck management process.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.89.3-89
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• 2001

Recently computer graphic technology has achieved remarkable development. Applications of this technology to various fields are expected. In this study, one application of computer graphics to the medical field is shown. We developed a rehabilitation system of hand manipulation using virtual reality aiming to offer enjoyable rehabilitation training to physically handicapped people with upper limb disabilities. This rehabilitation system generates training environments for upper limbs, such as moving balls in virtual space of computer. And by using data glove as a sophisticated input device, a user can manipulate objects in virtual space by his hand. By using this rehabilitation system, a user can have rehabilitation training under various conditions without feeling tedious.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.482-491
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• 2006

Purpose: Hemiplegia patients who were attacked by a stroke suffer from hemiplegic disabilities as well as motor disabilities. For them, rehabilitation cure is being carried out broadly. However, it is not enough for them to use the upper extremity than the lower extremity. For the use of the upper extremity, we examined the effect of constraint-induced movement therapy developed in this research on patients who experienced a stroke following hemiplegia. Method: For this study we selected 36 stroke patients who were registered at the community health center through accidental sampling, and assigned 21 of them to the experimental group, and 15 to the control group. The experimental group had constraint-induced movement therapy for 5 days and 7 hours a day from 9 to o'clock in the morning 9 to 4 o'clock in the afternoon 4 including warmup exercise and main exercise in the rehabilitation room, whereas the control group were restricted. Result: As a result of constraint-induced movement therapy, affected side elbow joint flexion range, side shoulder joint extension range and side shoulder joint of the flexion range of motions increased obviously in the experimental group compared to those in the control group. Conclusion: The result above clearly shows that constraint-induced movement therapy is an effective intervention for the rehabilitation of hemiplegia patients in increasing affected side elbow joint of the flexion range of motion, the shoulder joint extension, and the increase of flexion range of motion.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.267-272
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• 2016

In the era of ultra high speed information communication technology represented by Smart phone and Tablet PC, the disable and the aged people came to be in a position of so-called 'relatively weak people' in the field of information communication due to inconvenience of use and difference in information acquisition and processing ability. Thus, a survey was conducted on Smart phone accessibility items based on previous studies of the disabled with crippled disorder, brain lesions, myelopathy and muscular disabilities having more inconvenience relatively in their use of smart phone due to upper limb dysfunctions. Especially, people with upper limb dysfunctions with relatively weak grip had big inconvenience in the conditions of uses requiring actions such as grabbing and rotating the devices, and due to the characteristics of touch screen input method of Smart phone, they had big inconvenience due to a lack of a guidance for keyboard in input. As a result of questionnaires by the type of disability, it turned out that severe myelopathy causes the most inconvenience in using smart phone.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.125-131
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• 2014

This study is aim to investigate and propose ways to improve real condition of the accessibility compliance that is required to use mobile applications for special education student with a disabilities. Especially, expert examined some mobile applications with 12 items out of 15 mobile application accessibility guidelines from Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning which is helpful for people with physical disabilities such as difficulty in seeing, hearing, and upper limb. Based on the results of expert evaluation, we analyzed the problem for mobile applications without accessibility compliance and presents improvement plans for people with disabilities to use mobile applications.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.42-53
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate donning and doffing independence of the disabled individuals. The subjects of this study were who had kinetic disabilities on upper-limbs. 31 women and 38 children were participated in the survey. They were classified with six groups according to their upper-limbs' kinetic ability levels. Three upper-limbs' kinetic abilities were adopted: Lifting arms up to the chest, twisting shoulder to throw arms toward the back, and buttoning clothes by oneself. The independency of donning and doffing of 14 upper-body garment styles were evaluated by subjects. The donning and doffing independency of 14 garment styles was significantly differentiated by the level of kinetic abilities and garment styles. The person who able to button clothes by oneself could don and doff clothes by oneself. The results also revealed that the independency of donning and doffing was significantly different between cerebral palsy and apoplexy groups. The persons having a stroke of apoplexy were more likely to be able to dress independently than the persons with cerebral palsy. The persons with a paralysed arm were more likely able to wear ready-to-wear clothes of various styles. The donning and doffing independency was also significantly differentiated by the styles of garments. The tight fit style garments were more difficult to be dressed independently than the loose fit style garments. The jacket and shirts, which were buttoned from neck to bottom, were more difficult to be dressed independently than T-shirts.