• IMMUNE NETWORK
• /
• v.22 no.6
• /
• pp.44.1-44.28
• /
• 2022

Gut dysbiosis is one of prominent features in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) which are of an unknown etiology. Although the cause-and-effect relationship between IBD and gut dysbiosis remains to be elucidated, one area of research has focused on the management of IBD by modulating and correcting gut dysbiosis. The use of antibiotics, probiotics either with or without prebiotics, and fecal microbiota transplantation from healthy donors are representative methods for modulating the intestinal microbiota ecosystem. The gut microbiota is not a simple assembly of bacteria, fungi, and viruses, but a complex organ-like community system composed of numerous kinds of microorganisms. Thus, studies on specific changes in the gut microbiota depending on which treatment option is applied are very limited. Here, we review previous studies on microbial modulation as a therapeutic option for IBD and its significance in the pathogenesis of IBD.

• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
• /
• v.27 no.3
• /
• pp.137-145
• /
• 2024

Stunting, a condition characterized by impaired growth and development in children, remains a major public health concern worldwide. Over the past decade, emerging evidence has shed light on the potential role of gut microbiota modulation in stunting. Gut microbiota dysbiosis has been linked to impaired nutrient absorption, chronic inflammation, altered short-chain fatty acid production, and perturbed hormonal and signaling pathways, all of which may hinder optimal growth in children. This review aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of existing research exploring the bidirectional relationship between stunting and the gut microbiota. Although stunting can alter the gut microbial community, microbiota dysbiosis may exacerbate it, forming a vicious cycle that sustains the condition. The need for effective preventive and therapeutic strategies targeting the gut microbiota to combat stunting is also discussed. Nutritional interventions, probiotics, and prebiotics are among the most promising approaches to modulate the gut microbiota and potentially ameliorate stunting outcomes. Ultimately, a better understanding of the gut microbiota-stunting nexus is vital for guiding evidence-based interventions that can improve the growth and development trajectory of children worldwide, making substantial strides toward reducing the burden of stunting in vulnerable populations.

• Therapeutic Science for Rehabilitation
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.87-98
• /
• 2020

Objective : The purpose of this study was to verify the effectiveness of home-visit occupational therapy in stroke patients. Methods : Two patients with stroke who applied for home-based occupational therapy services at a health center in Seoul were enrolled. The home-visit occupational therapy program evaluates the subject's daily living, task performance, cognitive, and emotional functions, sets occupational therapy goals and plans interventions based on a client-centered approach. Occupational therapy programs consisted of 12 sessions based on the client's major problems. Results : COPM scores improved in both cases, there was an improvement in COPM scores, and in Case 2 there were improvements in MBI and K-MMSE scores. There was also an improvement in KGDS scores in Case 1. Conclusion : Home-visit occupational therapy was found to be effective in improving daily activities, cognition, and mental function of stroke patients. During home and community integration, continuous and continuous rehabilitation services need to be activated from institutional rehabilitation to community-based rehabilitation. Active home-visit occupational therapy is needed to promote physical, cognitive, mental and social access in stroke patients discharged from hospitals.

• Women's Health Nursing
• /
• v.5 no.1
• /
• pp.133-145
• /
• 1999

The purposesof the study are to analyze the community nursing center in U.S.A and to develop the model of nursing care system based on nurse-midwifery clinic in community for women's health in Korea. 1. In America nursing center is defined as nurse-anchored system of primary care delivery or neighborhood health center. Nursing centers are identified the following four types: (1) community outreach centers, which are similar to traditional public health clinics: (2) institutional-based centers following the mission of a large institution, such as a hospital or university: (3) wellness/health promotion centers, which offer screening, education, counseling, triage, and health maintenance services: and (4) independent practice. Nursing centers are a concept of services provided by nurses in practice arrangements in a community. Nursing centers offer a variety of services, ranging from primary care provided by advanced practice nurses with medical acute management and nursing care to the more traditional education, health promotion, screening wellness and coordination services. Some services, such as the care provided by advanced practice nurses are reimbursed under various insurance plan in some instances and states, where as others, such as preventive and educational services, are not. Thus, lack of reimbursement has threatened the survival of some centers. Licensing of nursing centers varies by state and program and accreditation of nursing centers is also limited. 52% of centers are affiliated with another facility and 48% are freestanding centers. The number of registered nurse at the nursing centers ranges from just one to 115, with a mean of eight RNs peragency and a median of three. Nursing centers avail ability varies: 14% are open 24 hours, 27% have variable short hours, 23% are open 6-7 days per week, and 36% are open Monday- Friday. As the result of my visiting three health centers in Seattle and San Francisco, the women's primary care nurse practitioners focus on a systematic and comprehensive assessment of the health status of women and diagnosis and management of common physical and psychosocial health concerns of women in ambulatory settings. Therapeutic nursing strategies are directed toward self-care, risk reoduction, health surveillance, stress reduction, healthy nutrition, social support, healthy coping, psychological well-being, and pharmacological therapy. They function as primary care providers for the well ness and illness care of women from adolescence through the older adult years and pregnant families. 2. In Korea a nurse-midwife practices independently for pregnant women's health including childbearing family at her own clinic in community. Her services are reimbursed under national health insurance but they are not paid on a fee-for-service schedule covering items. Analyzing the nursing centers in America, I suggest that nurse-midwifery clinics offer primary care for women and home care for chronic ill patients. The health law and health insurance policy should be reovised in order to expand nurse-midwife's and home care nurse's roles at nurse-midwifery clinic.

• Therapeutic Science for Rehabilitation
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.19-35
• /
• 2021

Objective : This study aimed to systematically examine studies on the life-space mobility in community-dwelling elderly and analyze and summarize the research trends. Methods : The Embase and PubMed databases were searched for articles on the life-space mobility of community-dwelling elderly published between January 2010 and January 2020. Based on the selection and exclusion criteria of the 335 articles, a total of 27 articles were finally selected and analyzed. Results : As a results, 11 (40.7%) cohort studies had evidence level II. This study showed that the participants in the studies were healthy elderly (81.5%), and the University of Alabama Life-Space Assessment (UAB-LSA) used the most participants (88.9%). Of the foci of the 27 finally selected studies, 8 (29.6%) were physical, 8 (29.6%) were psychosocial, 6 (22.2%) were cognitive, and 2 (7.4%) were social, and 3 (11.1%) were others. The life-space mobility of the elderly needs to be analyzed from a multidimensional point of view, and not based on a single factor such as the physical, cognitive, psychosocial, or social. Conclusion : The results of this study are expected to verify causality through the study of life-space mobility for the elderly staying in various communities and provide future directions for the study on the mobility of the elderly's and the development of community-based intervention programs.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
• /
• v.27 no.1
• /
• pp.155-164
• /
• 2002

Hypertension is the most frequent disease of chronic circulatory diseases and major intermediate cause or risk of the cerebrovascular disease which is a leading cause of death in Korea. Therefore, management of hypertension is an important issue in Korean healthcare. Especially, therapeutic compliance of hypertensives is very important because the hypertensive patients should receive anti-hypertensive treatment as long as the condition exists. However, many patients drop out of treatment, which is a major problem that needs to be solved through a hypertension control program. This study was carried out to provide basic data and counter measule for the hypertension control program in the community which aimed to keep the patients receiving treatment continuously. In order to investigate compliance of hypertensive patients during three months follow-up and the rate of control of hypertension, the data were collected during February, 2001, by reviewing medical records of 295 hypertensive patients who had been registered to Gunnam-myeon health subcenter before November, 2000. The author also study the dropout reasons by interviewing 58 patients among 68 dropout patients. The results were as follows: 1. Among the 295 subjects, 108(36.6%) were male and 187(63.4%) were female. Statistically, female hypertensives had a higher mean age than male(64.6 vs 66.3, p<0.05). 2. The 54.9% of the patients took anti-hypertensive medicine continuously for the past three months. And 19.3% had drug intermittently, and 25.8% dropped out of treatment. 3. Among several variables, such as sex, age, health insurance, the time taken from a patient's village to the health subcenter, only the last one was found to be significantly related to therapeutic compliance in the contingency table analysis. 4. The dropout reasons by multiple response were as follows, 'no symptom or no problem' (23.9%), 'change to other hospitals'(19.4%), 'geographical barrier'(17.9%), 'change to a neighborhood drugstore' (14.9%), 'immobility'(7.5%), 'economic barrier'(6.0%), 'unsatisfactory services of the health subcenter'(4.4%). 5. The mean blood pressure of 295 subjects was $144.9{\pm}12.9/86.88{\pm}8.6mmHg$. 6. The 32.5% of the subjects were controlled below 140/90mmHg. Conclusions: In order to improve the low rates of treatment and control of hypertension in rural hypertensives, a more active and systematic hypertension control program, including out-reaching follow-up management, is required in rural area. Especially, for health education of hypertensive patients, emphasis should placed on correcting wrong attitude toward hypertension.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
• /
• v.21 no.1
• /
• pp.1-12
• /
• 2003

Day care center for the elderly is an alternative for community care for frail elderly who need social participation and physical cares and services outside the family. The purpose of this study was to identify the present situation of day care center for the elderly and to suggest desirable interior space plans for elderly day care center. Data were collected by two ways; a mail survey and case studies of existing day care centers. Five cases of day care centers were analyzed to find out Physical and space problems, available programs and services. Also, the staffs in 96 day care centers for the elderly in nationwide were selected for a mail survey and 68.8 percentage of all was collected and analyzed. From the result of case studies, narrow space and lack of accessibility features for wheelchair or other prosthetic devices were the major problems. From the result of a mail survey analysis, the elderly users were over 73 years old, and high proportion had suffered from dementia and apoplexy Also, staffing ration was 1:7 In other words, one staff was caring of 7 old people, and supporting staff was insufficient. Therefore, supportive, therapeutic environment Was more important issue to improve quality of care. Separate program room and outdoor space, lounging space, treatment room by gardening, separate counselling room, bedroom, a simple kitchen unit, staff office, separate physical treatment room, resting room for staff was indicated more necessarily. When priority of planning interior space was safety followed by accessability and convenience, it was also reported that sire of each room was generally narrow. The most serious problem in interior space was the lack and narrowness of space, and accessible features for mobility. Based on the literature review and the findings of this study, two types of floor plans for elderly day care center were suggested;‘a mixed type for the elderly with and without dementia’and‘a separate type for the elderly with dementia.’The main goals for designing interior space for two types of elderly day care center were to provide safe environment, encouraging environment for remaining abilities of users, sanitary environment, therapeutic environment, familiar environment, and socially-encouraging environment. The recommendations for further studies were suggested.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.391-399
• /
• 2011

Free fatty acids (FFAs) are known to have bacteriocidal activity and are important components of the innate immune system. Many FFAs are naturally present in human and animal skin, breast milk, and in the bloodstream. Here, the therapeutic potential of FFAs against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is demonstrated in cultures and in mice. Among a series of FFAs, only oleic acid (OA) (C18:1, cis-9) can effectively eliminate Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) through cell wall disruption. Lauric acid (LA, C12:0) and palmitic acid (PA, C16:0) do not have this ability. OA can inhibit growth of a number of Gram-positive bacteria, including hospital and community-associated MRSA at a dose that did not show any toxicity to human sebocytes. The bacteriocidal activities of FFAs were also demonstrated in vivo through injection of OA into mouse skin lesions previously infected with a strain of MRSA. In conclusion, our results suggest a promising therapeutic approach against MRSA through boosting the bacteriocidal activities of native FFAs, which may have been co-evolved during the interactions between microbes and their hosts.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
• /
• v.44 no.1
• /
• pp.38-55
• /
• 2023

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to provide direction for future research in the field of Korean medicine by analyzing microbiome based technologies emerging as a new diagnostic and treatment paradigm. Methods: To achieve the purpose of the study intellectual property data was used. After establishing citation network from registered microbiome-related US patents, citation network was analyzed by knowledge persistence-based main path approach to understanding technological trajectories. Furthermore, community detection algorithms were used to quantitatively identifying specific technological domain in a particular time period. Results: Results shows that early technologies in livestock industry contribute most to the recent patents. Knowledge in the patents flow through the path of food and beverage technological domain, and finally are inherited to the recent development of diagnosis, treatment and prevention technic. Conclusions: This study indicate that developing diagnostic tools which can link the composition of microbiome to specific diseases should be given high priority. Researches should lead to novel therapeutic strategies. Specifically, improving reliability of pattern identification and finding effective therapeutic compositions based on principles of Korean medicine is necessary.

• Therapeutic Science for Rehabilitation
• /
• v.7 no.3
• /
• pp.35-45
• /
• 2018

Objective : Questionnaires completed by occupational therapists and patients in institutions conducting a "Pilot Project of Rehabilitation Medical Institutions" were used to determine whether occupational therapy was able to establish appropriate patient support systems for return to home and community. Methods : The questionnaire was completed by 293 occupational therapists from 13 institutions conducting pilot projects and 296 patients from 8 institutions who were able to respond. Results : Although the Pilot Project of Rehabilitation Medical Institutions is being implemented to enable early return of patients to activities of daily living, the most important therapeutic goal is not efficiently applied. In addition, since the health insurance systems utilized in medical institutions are applied as in the pilot project, there is no basis for evaluation and mediation of practical daily activities and vocational rehabilitation for actual return to the community. Conclusion : Through a detailed review of the pilot project, it will be necessary to improve the quality of life through the early return of patients to social activity, and to make practical improvements to reduce unnecessary societal expenditures.