• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.537-544
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• 2016

This study was to investigate their relevance between oral health behaviors and number of remaining teeth of the elderly welfare recipients through the fluoride and scaling of the business. Researcher collected 660 subjects over 60 elderly welfare recipients investigated self-administered survey and use denture and number of remaining teeth though oral examination. Increasingly age number of teeth remaining reduced, there is a difference on the number of remaining teeth according to gender, age, the use of oral hygiene products, self diagnosis oral condition, brushing after lunch and showed significant difference(p<0.05). The remaining number of teeth can be prevented by attention and efforts of subjects. Therefore, we investigated convergent effects of oral health behaviors on number of remaining teeth of the elderly, I hope that oral health care program continually provides expansion of preventive treatment and to maintain the provision of health care about vulnerable group.

• Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.99-111
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• 2019

This paper aims to analysize the regional disparity of rural life service. In other words, analyzing the spatial distribution of the single-households elderly and service accessibility to public transportation, and the relationship between them in rural. The results of this study are as follows. First, there is a high concentration of the single-households elderly in Gyeongsangbuk-do and Jeollanam-do, and the distribution of them shows a tendency to cluster locally. Second, the vulnerability area of public transportation are concentrated on the myeon area. Third, The above-average proportion of vulnerable single-households elderly in Gyeongsangbuk-do and Jeollanam-do are concentrated on the myeon area. This result show that there is a positive correlation and high values are concentrated. This paper is expected to contribute to the regional development projects and effective implementation of rural polices.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.557-564
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• 2018

Along with the aging society, the prevalence of dementia is also increasing. Dementia causes short-term memory loss as well as difficulties of performing daily activities and gradually causes suffering of the patients and their family. In spite of various programs for prevention of dementia of older people are being implemented, there is a lack of developing natural-based program for physical and mental health promotion. Therefore, it is necessary to develop programs for the elderly living alone who are more vulnerable to dementia because of their social and economic isolation. The purpose of this study was to develop a natural-based program and investigate the effects of 10 weeks forest therapy program for dementia prevention to improve the psychological and physical health of the elderly living alone. The experimental subjects were 30 elderly (aged 65 or older) and 31 elderly participated in control group. The Stress response, depressive symptoms, weight, body mass index (BMI), fat mass and muscle mass were measured for pre and post test. The results showed that the experimental group showed subjective stress relief (t=5.249, p=.000), improvement in symptoms of depression (t=4.152, p=.000), and decreases in weight (t=2.686, p=.012), BMI (t=2.629, p=.014) and fat mass (t=2.918, p=.007) after the forest therapy program. The experimental group showed lower stress reactions(t=-7.185, p=.000) and less depressive symptoms (t=-5.303, p=.000) than control group after participating the program. These results suggest that periodic forest exposure can help having less stressful and depressive status than non-forest exposure and the forest therapy program can reduce participants' psychological and physical risk factors of dementia.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.107-117
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• 2021

Background and objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of a forest healing program in terms of depression, neuropsychological and physiological benefits for the elderly. Methods: For this purpose, we developed a forest therapy program for the elderly who are vulnerable to dementia and conducted a total of 11 sessions of forest therapy activities in a forest once a week. We measured the changes in depression, resting-state Electroencephalography(EEG) and heart rate variability (HRV) before and after the program. There were 60 subjects aged over 65 yesrs old. 30 subjects participated in the forest therapy program, and the other were in the control group. The Geriatric Depression Scale was used to measure the level of depression, neuroNicle FX2 (Laxtha, Korea) was used to measure the resting-state EEG, and photoplethymogram (ubpulse T1, Laxtha, Korea) was used to measure the HRV. Results: The results showed that the depression index of the experimental group improved with statistical significance after the program (experiment group = 3.267 decrease of the mean). In the EEG measurement, the alpha-peak frequency at rest (experimental group = 0.227 Hz increase of the mean) was improved (mean increase = 0.23 in the experimental group, p < .05). The high frequency of HRV, which represents the parasympathetic nerve activity of the body's autonomous response, was also significantly improved (mean increase = 0.396 in the experimental group, p < .05). Conclusion: The results suggest that the forest therapy program can reduce the cognitive, psychological and physical risk factors of dementia for the elderly at risk of cognitive decline. Therefore, forest therapy activities may be suitable for the prevention of dementia in the elderly.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.443-451
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• 2017

The purpose of this research is to examine ways to improve the quality of life of elderly people living alone in urban areas by identifying their stress, social support, and quality of life as well as analyzing the relationships between these factors. In this research, a questionnaire survey was conducted for approximately two weeks including 232 elderly people aged 65 years and above who were using 10 senior welfare centers in the Seoul and Gyeonggi regions. The results of the analysis based on the collected data showed that of the stresses experienced by elderly people living alone in urban areas, the stresses of health, family, and psychological and social stresses had negative effects on social support and quality of life. Also, it was found that the social support of elderly people living alone had positive effects on the quality of life. Additionally, it was found that social support had a mediating effect in the relationship between stress and quality of life of elderly people living alone in urban areas. In other words, social support plays a buffer role in enhancing the quality of life regarding health, family, economy, and psychological and social stresses. This research has significant implications in that it was conducted on elderly people living alone, since elderly people living alone are not only under more stressful circumstances in a vulnerable environment than other seniors but also their quality of life is much lower. The implications of this research are that, from a social point of view, these elderly people living alone should no longer be neglected and that differentiated policy interventions for elderly people living alone is required.

• 재활복지
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.31-54
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to explore the improvement method of the emergency safety system as a social protection scheme for the elderly living alone with severe disabilities. The study was conducted by randomly choosing three regions in the metropolitan area (Jongno-gu, Seoul), the small-medium city (Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do) and the rural area (Geochang-gun, Gyeongsangnam-do) among 17 cities and counties nationwide. The study method is based on the interview form of the structured questionnaires with city officials, county officials, and center operators. According to the results of the interview analysis, it was recognized that there was a need for an emergency safety system for the elderly living alone with severe disabilities. In spite of this necessity, there were problems about publicity for the discovery of victims of the blind spot in welfare, about inconvenience due to frequent malfunctions of the emergency equipment, about insufficient awareness of the security of the emergency officials and about supply and demand of manpower for 24-hour monitoring service. In order to improve the effective operation of the emergency safety system, it was the most urgent issue to formulate the legislation for responding to the crisis management of the vulnerable. A suggestion of this study is to build a safety system in which one-stop service is provided for the realization of compact welfare through the establishment of a MOU for linkage with community organizations, the full inspection of emergency equipment to solve safety equipment malfunction problems and the manpower supplement for 24-hour monitoring.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Rural Architecture
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2013

Problems of housing, healthcare, social exchanges, and lonely feelings of vulnerable social groups such as the elderly living alone in rural and fishing villages should be resolved by guaranteeing minimum residential rights and levels to restore the sense of self-esteem and social stability and to maintain the rural communities and these should be the object of social interest and support. The housing problems of rural and fishing villages should be resolved not through supply to meet demand but by beginning with providing the ways to attain mutual interaction through the program that recognizes housing as merit goods to maintain the regional communities This research examines more minutely the problems caused by poor housing conditions of rural and fishing villages and attempts to present rural and fishing village type community living home as an alternative through regeneration. The results of this research are as follows. First, the administrative support system should be built to support the community living home in its beginning, process, completion, and even post management. Second, education for reinforcing capabilities to help understand the community living home should continually conducted on the occupants, villagers, and related organizations. Third, in order to expand the community living home, research and development should be made so that the zero-energy house, the alternative energy utilizing house, etc. can be widely used. In building community living home for vulnerable social groups in rural and fishing villages, practical alternatives suitable to the regional realities should be presented and practiced so that the community living home can be built to the satisfaction of all the villagers and the occupants, and the improvement measures should be presented through constant interest and monitoring.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.11
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• pp.5071-5078
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• 2011

This study attempted to identify the relationship of functional health status, satisfaction of customized home visiting health service, and quality of life in vulnerable elderly. This research people 399 total in the object. Data gathering period was from June to September of 2010 and measurement tool used for this study was the house visiting health service recording sheet, recommended by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Data were analyzed using t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficients with SPSS/WIN 17.0 version. Functional health status and satisfaction of customized home visiting health service positively correlated with quality of life. Functional health status not correlated with satisfaction of customized home visiting health service. Results of this study can be leveraged as complementary information for the effective management of customized home visiting health service subjects.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.63-74
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• 2022

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to present an evacuation performance analysis model that can derive vulnerable evacuation spaces with considering the movement behavior as per the elderly groups in the event of a fire in a geriatric hospital. Methods: The evacuation characteristics of geriatric hospital users were investigated through the review of precedent studies. First, the occupant conditions and the evacuation scenario were set to analyze a study target hospital. Then, the evacuation simulation was carried out considering the group types and the density of each group. Finally, an evacuation performance analysis model according to the group type was presented based on the simulation results. Results: The results of this study are as follows: (1) The evacuation performance according to the group type is to be clarified through the suggested study model. (2) It is necessary to secure a ramp or an emergency elevator to distribute the evacuation personnel at the design stage because congestion occurs due to collisions between evacuees on the stairs and delays the evacuation time. (3) It is necessary to consider the evacuation stairs and openings of sufficient size by analyzing the frequency of congestion occurrence and the escape routes of occupants in advance to identify the space where the evacuation flow overlaps. Implications: It is expected that the study result is to be used as primary data for studies that consider the elderly and clustering evacuation behavior in the event of a fire in a geriatric hospital.

• Journal of Technologic Dentistry
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.413-425
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• 2011

Purpose: This study conducted a survey on the elderly with physical debilities, who are in a medically vulnerable social class, to examine closely their demo-sociological characteristics, unmet needs, dental states, and living qualities and satisfaction levels relating to oral health and social supports to them, and also to prepare the basis for effective public medical policies and health improvement programs aimed at improving the quality of life for the elderly with physical debilities. Methods: Twenty-two elderly care facilities within Jeju Special Self-Government Province participated in the survey. Between 11 January and 5 March 2010, a total of 250 elderly persons(65 and over) with physical debilities were interviewed and their dental health was checked. Results: The results of the survey are as follows. The need for social support for dental care of the elderly with physical debilities was high in the medical institution-supported service (49.6%). The unmet needs for physical care were high in bathing (49.6%) and using public transportation (71.6%). More than half of these surveyed had ten or fewer teeth. The survey found that 31.6% of the participants experienced problems eating, due to poor dental health. Concerning quality of life, 30.5% of those surveyed experienced physical pain. Conclusion: In summary, the ages of the survey participants directly relates to the degree of behavioral debility experienced. The more debility a participant exhibits, the greater is the need for social support and dental care. The dental health of a participant directly relates to a higher quality of life. Good dental health of a participant translate to better quality of life. In light of the fact that the elderly with physical debilities suffer from a lack of accessibility to medical care and worse oral health than do other elderly persons, it is essential to increase accessibility to medical institutions that can provide such services as door to door dental care. Current insurance policies, funding for denture insurance, and free denture and denture-upgrade programs desperately need to be expanded. Therefore, to improve effectively the quality of life for the elderly with physical debilities civil dental medical resources should be encouraged to provide inclusive and prevention-focused medical care. In the public domain, door to door dental care services and cooperation with civil dental care resources need to be improved to increase impartial accessibility to dental medical institutions.