• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.45-51
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• 2015

This study was to verify effect on muscle strength of trunk and body composition for elderly according to spinal stability exercise with three dimension. We recruited forty elderly participants(twenties as training group, the other twenties as control group) over sixty five aged. The participant performed muscle strength estimation to exercise of eight direction using spinal stability training system. Also, we estimated body composition in participants using inbody 720. Trining group performed direction exercise(F, FOR, R, BOR, B, BOL, L, FOL) and multiple exercise with band exercise, strengthening gym and walking during thirty minute. But control group only performed multiple exercise without direction exercise. All training progressed three days a week for eight weeks. The results showed that muscle strength of trunk in training group increased significantly from 79.9 point to 85.6 point with reducement of body weight, body fat and BMI. However, control group showed a few exercise effect with increasement of amount of muscles and reducement of body fat without muscle strength of trunk. These results means that spinal stability exercise could be helped to prevent obey and fall of elderly caused by muscle strengthening and improving body composition. This could be applied to develop rehabilitation program efficiently based these data.

• Journal of Service Research and Studies
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.186-200
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• 2023

This study aims to improve the usability of the white cane, which is walking equipment that most local visually impaired people use and carry when going out, and to contribute to the prevention of safety accidents and the walking rights of visually impaired people by providing improvement and resolution measures for the problems identified. Also, this study is a study on the visually impaired, primarily targeting the 1st to 2nd degree visually impaired people, who cannot go out on their own without walking equipment such as a white cane, corresponding to 20% among approximately 250,000 blind and low vision people in the Korean population. In the study process, the concept has been developed from the user's point of view in order that the white cane becomes a real help in the walking step of the visually impaired and the improvement of usability of the white cane, the main walking equipment for the visually impaired, are done by problem identification through the Double Diamond Model of Design Thinking (Empathize → Define → Ideate → Prototype → Test (verify)). As a result of the investigation in the process of Empathy, a total of five issues was synthesized, including an increase in the proportion of the visually impaired people, an insufficient workforce situation to help all the visually impaired, an improvement and advancement of assistive devices essential for the visually impaired, problems of damage, illegal occupation, demolition, maintenance about braille blocks, making braille block paradigms for the visually impaired and for everyone. In Ideate and Prototype steps, situations derived from brainstorming were grouped and the relationship were made through the KJ method, and specific situations and major causes were organized to establish the direction of the concept. The derived solutions and major functions are defined in four categories, and representative situations requiring solutions and major functions are organized into two user scenarios. Ideas were visualized by arranging the virtual Persona and Customer Journey Map according to the situation and producing a prototype through 3D modeling. Finally, in the evaluation, the final concept derived is a device such a smart cane for guidance for the visually impaired as ① a smart cane emphasizing portability + ② compatibility with other electronic devices + ③ a product with safety and convenience.

• Journal of International Academy of Physical Therapy Research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.738-742
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• 2014

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of FES and ankle mobilization on the ankle motion and the quality of gait of chronic hemiplegic patients with limited ankle joint motions. As research subjects, 24 chronic hemiplegic patients who could walk independently, regardless of assistive aids, were selected. Then, 8 subjects received mobilization randomly and 8 subjects received FES and 8 subjects received mobilization and FES, at the same time. The dorsiflexion PROM significantly increased in the group of mobilization therapy, mobilization and FES all together(p<.01). There were statistically significant differences among the three groups(p<.01). The 10m walking test significantly decreased in the group of mobilization therapy, mobilization and FES all together(p<.05). There were statistically significant differences among the three groups(p<.01). The gait velocity significantly increased in the group of mobilization therapy, FES therapy, mobilization and FES all together(p<.05). There were statistically significant differences among the three groups(p<.01). The stride length significantly increased in the group of mobilization therapy, mobilization and FES all together(p<.05). There were statistically significant differences among the three groups(p<.05). In conclusion, these findings demonstrate that rather than only using one treatment technique, applying mobilization and FES together brings a more satisfactory result to hemiplegic patients with limited ankle joint motions.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.97-104
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• 2017

Background: South Korea is one of fastest aging countries in the world. Poor balance and falls of the elderly are main health issues. Objects: The goal of this study was to understand the association between the socioeconomical factors and the standing balance of elderly living in the rural and urban area. Methods: One hundred sixty-six elderly participants who were older than 65 and were able to walk without an assistive device were recruited in the city of Gwangju and in the rural area of Jeonnam, South Korea. All participants performed the static and dynamic standing balance tests. Static standing balance was measured with chronometer in seconds while standing on one leg. Dynamic balance was tested with the timed up and go test (TUG), measured in seconds while getting up from a chair and walking 3 meters and back to sit. The static and dynamic standing balance was analyzed using analysis of variance and the Fisher's Least Significant Difference post hoc test. Results: Male participants from both areas had no difference in one leg standing and TUG. The female elderly living in rural area took shorter in TUG than females living in urban area. Age decreased the one leg standing time in both areas while did not affect the TUG significantly. As the monthly income increased, both of one leg standing and TUG increased in urban area, while the medium monthly income showed best performance (it was not statistically significant) in both of one leg standing and TUG in rural area. Conclusion: Socioeconomical factors affects differently the standing balance of the elderly living in rural and urban South Korea. Female living alone in urban area with low monthly income demonstrated worst standing balance in this study.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.53-60
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• 2007

The objective of this study was to discover the effects of the short-term home visiting physical therapy program involving patients with some chronic brain disorders at Gimhae City, Kyongnam. Recovery of activities of daily living (ADL) is a very important factor of rehabilitative procedures, and Functional Independence Measure (FIM) is a useful standard of evaluation for it. The FIM is widely used in brain disorder research because it measures real functional activities of daily living. We applied the physical therapy exercise program twice per week (10~15 times repeatedly); a warm-up and cool down exercise performed every ten minutes by active & active-assistive ROM and stretching exercises. Main exercises were composed of getting up & laying down in bed, standing training, walking exercise in the room, and window or wall sliding exercise using affected upper limbs for a total duration of 30 minutes. We collected the data from 20 patients with chronic brain disorders at his/her home and analyzed by means of SPSS/PC+ program (Ver. 10.0). After the six week long physical therapy exercise program, the average was $56.10{\pm}22.59$ point compared with initial $50.55{\pm}19.12$ point by FIM, improved functional ADL ability about 5.55 point, and these changed scores were statistically significant (p=.000). We also studied another factor regarding patient's satisfaction. The majority of subjects (10 people) rated the program with the maximum score of ten points (50.0%), and three people rated it a seven point program (15.0%), the other two subjects gave a rating of nine and eight points (10.0%). Because the program was effective at improving the physical ADL ability and satisfaction of each subject, we suggest continual development and implementation of a home visiting physical therapy program. Further study should involve a longer period of observation with a larger population that is involved in an individually designed home physical therapy program.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2019.05a
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• pp.45-48
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• 2019

Detection of crosswalk is an important issue for the blind to walk without the help of others. There is a braille block on the sidewalk, which helps the blind to walk. On the other hand, crosswalk is more dangerous due to the moving vehicles. However, there is no appropriate means to induce the blind. In this paper, we propose a method to detect crosswalk in front of a blind and estimate its direction using an image sensor. We adopt multi-ROIs and make their binary versions. In order to determine whether it is a crosswalk, two features are extracted; one is the number of crossing in the binary image and the other is the ratio of white area. We can also estimate the direction of the crosswalk through the slope of the projection data. We evaluated the performance using experimental dataset and the proposed algorithm showed 80% accuracy of detection.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.393-398
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• 2021

As society becomes more complex and advanced, the risk of accidents is inevitably increased, and this is an opportunity to increase the occurrence of not only congenital disabilities but also acquired disabilities. In this situation, the use of rehabilitation robots, a complex of advanced technologies, is expected to increase steadily in the future. So the authors would take a look the technological trends and future development prospects of domestic and foreign rehabilitation robots. Until now, disability assistive robot technology has been mainly developed in the field of supporting disability with walking disabilities or work limitations rather than cognitive disabilities. However, another issue of population aging is that cognitive impairment has the potential to increase, so development of a disability assistance robot that secures user safety must be actively promoted. It is thought that empirical results should be derived and converged

• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.67-75
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• 2024

Crosswalks play an important role for the safe movement of pedestrians in a complex urban environment. However, for the visually impaired, crosswalks can be a big risk factor. Although assistive tools such as braille blocks and acoustic traffic lights exist for safe walking, poor management can sometimes act as a hindrance to safety. This paper proposes a method to improve accuracy in a deep learning-based real-time crosswalk detection model that can be used in applications for pedestrian assistance for the disabled at the beginning. The image was binarized by utilizing the characteristic that the white line of the crosswalk image contrasts with the road surface, and through this, the crosswalk could be better recognized and the location of the crosswalk could be more accurately identified by using two models that learned the whole and the middle part of the crosswalk, respectively. In addition, it was intended to increase accuracy by creating a boundary box that recognizes crosswalks in two stages: whole and part. Through this method, additional frames that the detection model did not detect in RGB image learning from the crosswalk image could be detected.