• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.270-276
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• 2017

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the water extract of Albizziae Cortex (AC) on the learning and memory impairments. AC was administered to normal mouse and scopolamine-injected amnesia mouse model. Passive avoidance test, Y-maze test, and Morris water maze test were conducted to confirm the cognitive-enhancing activities of AC. Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity and acetylcholine (Ach) content were measured after oral administration of AC. On the passive avoidance test, AC (200 mg/kg) significantly increased latency time and recovered scopolamine-impaired learning and memory in mice. In addition, AC (200 mg/kg) reduced Exploration time in target quadrant and reversed the scopolamine-induced cognitive impairments in the Y-maze test. Moreover, AC (200 mg/kg) increased exploration time in target quadrant and improved scopolamine-reduced escape latencies in the Morris water maze test. These effects were presented by regulatory effects of AC on AChE activity and Ach content. Taken together, AC increases cognitive-enhancing activities and ameliorates scopolamine-induced learning and memory impairment. AC might be a potential agent for prevention and treatment of amnesia and dementia.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.64 no.12
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• pp.608-618
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• 2021

Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) is the most common cause of neonatal encephalopathy with a global incidence of approximately 1 to 8 per 1,000 live births. Neonatal encephalopathy can cause neurodevelopmental and cognitive impairments in survivors of hypoxic-ischemic insults with and without functional motor deficits. Normal neurodevelopmental outcomes in early childhood do not preclude cognitive and behavioral difficulties in late childhood and adolescence because cognitive functions are not yet fully developed at this early age. Therapeutic hypothermia has been shown to significantly reduced death and severe disabilities in term newborns with HIE. However, children treated with hypothermia therapy remain at risk for cognitive impairments and follow-up is necessary throughout late childhood and adolescence. Novel adjunctive neuroprotective therapies combined with therapeutic hypothermia may enhance the survival and neurodevelopmental outcomes of infants with HIE. The extent and severity of brain injury on magnetic resonance imaging might predict neurodevelopmental outcomes and lead to targeted interven tions in children with a history of neonatal encephalopathy. We provide a summary of the long-term cognitive outcomes in late childhood and adolescence in children with a history of HIE and the association between pattern of brain injury and neurodevelopmental outcomes.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.678-693
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• 1993

The purposes of this study were to describe the level of vision and hearing impairments, depression and functional capacity, among Korean institutionalized elderly and to examine the relation-ship between sensory impairments, depression, and functional capacity in these people. The final pupose was to test the cognitive function path model using sensory competencies as predictors. A convenience sample of thirty nine male and 90 female subjects with a mean age of 80.5 were the subjects of this study. The subjects were tested for cognitive function, and vision and hearing impairments. Physical function and social function were measured by observation of designated task performance by the subjects. Their level of de-pression was measured using a Geriatric Depression Scale administered through an interview. Individual subjective ratings of hearing and vision were marked by the subjects, on a ladder scale. The results of the study showed that 48.8% of the subjects had a hearing impairment, 63.5% had a vision impairement, and 36.4% had both a vision and hearing impairement. The four sensory groups (no sensory impairement, hearing impairement, vision impairement, hearing and vision impairement) were tested for differences in depression, physical function, social behavior and cognitive function. The only significant difference that was found was in cognitive function, between the no sensory impairement group and the hearing and vision impairement group(F=3.25, P<.05), Subjective ratings of hearing showed a significant correlation with cognitive function(r=.34, p<.001) and with social behavior(r=.31, p<.001). There was no correlation between subjective vision ratings and cognitive function or social behavior. However there was a significant correlation between vision and hearing(r=.49, p<.001). There was also a significant negative correlation between age and vision(r=-.21, p<.01) and between age and hear-ing(r=-.34, p<.001). There was a significant correlation between depression and physical function (r=-.32, p<.001) but there was no correlation between depression and cognitive function or social behavior. Based on the literature review and the result, this study, a path model of sensory competence-> cognitive function- >social behavior was developed and tested : Perceived vision and perceived hearing were the exogenous variahles and cognitive function and social behavior were the endogeneous variables in the model. The path analysis result demonstrated an accept-able fit (GFI=.997, AGFI=.972, X$^2$=.72 (p=.396), RMSR=.019) between the data and the model. There was a significant direct effect($\beta$=.38) of perceived hearing on cognitive function. There was a significant direct effect ($\beta$=.32) of cognitive function on social behavior. The total effect of hearing on social behavior was $\beta$=.32 including the indirect effect ($\beta$=.12) . However perceived vsion had little effect ($\beta$=-.08) on cognitive function. The result of path analysis confirms that hearing levels influence cognitive function, and both hearing and cognitive function levels influence social behavior. However, vision has little effect on cognitive function or on social behavior. For the next study, a combined model of the pre viously developed environment - >depression- > physical and social function model, and the present cognitive function model, should be tested to further refine the functional capacity model. There also a need for longitudinal study of functional capacity and sencory competence in order to better understand how declining sensory competence influences functional capacity and how it effects in-creasing dependency and nursing needs in the elderly.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.118-128
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• 2015

Purpose: Evidence suggests that some patients with breast cancer experience cognitive difficulties following chemotherapy. This longitudinal study was done to examine the prevalence of cognitive impairment and trajectory of cognitive function over time in women with breast cancer, who received adjuvant chemotherapy. Methods: Participants were 137 patients with breast cancer. They completed neuropsychological tests and the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Cognitive Function before adjuvant therapy (pretest), toward the end of adjuvant therapy (posttest), and 6 months after the completion of adjuvant therapy (follow-up test). Of the patients, 91 were treated with adjuvant chemotherapy and 46 patients who did not receive chemotherapy made up the comparison group. A reliable-change index and repeated-measure ANOVA were used for statistical analyses. Results: At the posttest point, over 30% of patients showed complex cognitive impairment and reported greater difficulty in subjective cognitive function. At the follow-up test point, 22.0% of patients exhibited complex cognitive impairment and 30.8% of patients complained of subjective cognitive impairment. Repeated-measure ANOVA showed significant decreases after receiving chemotherapy followed by small improvements 6 months after the completion of chemotherapy in cognitive domains of change for attention and concentration, memory, executive function, and subjective cognitive function. Conclusion: These results suggest that chemotherapy in patients with breast cancer may be associated with objective and subjective cognitive impairments. Further studies are needed to explore the potential risk factors and predictor of chemotherapy-related cognitive changes. Also nursing interventions for prevention and intervention of cognitive impairments should be developed and tested.

• The Korea Journal of Herbology
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.33-39
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• 2020

Objectives : Increasing evidence supports the biological and pharmacological activities of essential oils on the central nervous system such as pain, anxiety, attention, arousal, relaxation, sedation and learning and memory. The purpose of present work is to investigate the protective effect and molecular mechanism of cypress essential oil (CEO) against scopolamine (SCO)-induced cognitive impairments in C57BL/6 mice. Methods : A series of behavior tests such as Morris water maze, passive avoidance, and fear conditioning tests were conducted to monitor learning and memory functions. Immunoblotting and RT-PCR were also performed in the hippocampal tissue to determine the underlying mechanism of CEO. Results : SCO induced cognitive impairments as assessed by decreased step-through latency in passive avoidance test, relatively low freezing time in fear conditioning test, and increased time spent to find the hidden platform in Morris water maze test. Conversely, CEO inhalation significantly reversed the SCO-induced cognitive impairments in C57BL/6 mice comparable to control levels. To elucidate the molecular mechanisms of memory enhancing effect of CEO we have examined the expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the hippocampus. CEO effectively elevated the protein as well as mRNA expression of BDNF via activation of cAMP response element binding protein (CREB). Conclusions : Our findings suggest that CEO inhalation effectively restored the SCO-impaired cognitive functions in C56BL/6 mice. This learning and memory enhancing effect of CEO was partly mediated by up-regulation of BDNF via activation of CREB.

• Korean Journal of Pharmacognosy
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.196-203
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• 2010

Black sesame (Sesami semen nigrum) has been used to treat dizziness, earnoise, constipation in the traditional Chinese medicine. In the present study, we assessed memory enhancing properties of 70% ethanolic extract of black sesame (EBS70) and its ameliorating activities on learning and memory impairments induced by scopolamine. Drug-induced amnesia was made by scopolamine treatment (1 mg/kg, i.p.). Single EBS70 (200 mg/kg, p.o.) administration significantly enhanced cognitive function and attenuated scopolamine-induced cognitive impairments as determined by the passive avoidance and Y-maze tasks (P<0.05) and also reduced escape-latency on the Morris water maze task (P<0.05). In addition, EBS70 increased BDNF expression in hippocampus 4 h after its administration (P<0.05). These results suggest that EBS70 enhances learning and memory in normal state and attenuates amnesic state caused by cholinergic dysfunction.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.283-292
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• 2019

The loss of semantic knowledge and impairments in semantic associations by semantic category is gaining increasing attention, as indicators of early-stage cognitive decline. As such, we assigned semantic association task (SAT) to normal elderly (NE) and those with subjective memory impairment (SMI) or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to examine their performance by semantic subcategories and the differences in error patterns. We found a significant difference in the number of correct response and reaction time under the SAT categories among the three groups, with the highest performance observed in 'function' and the lowest performance in 'superordinate' and 'part/whole'. Moreover, the error frequency was the lowest in NE, followed by those with SMI and MCI, with the latter two groups showing a significant increase in no-response. Our findings demonstrate the varying extent and process of impairments in the semantic network by category over different stages of cognitive decline. Thus, we proposed SAT performance as an indicator to detect and follow-up on cognitive decline in elderly with cognitive disorder.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.584-591
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• 2018

This study was conducted to determine the levels of cognitive impairment (MMSE-K) among centenarians, and to reveal their association with related variables. The study subjects were 268 centenarians who received medical check-ups from the National Health Insurance Corporation during the period of 2016-2017. The levels of cognitive impairment were significantly reduced among females as well as those living with spouses and children, lower monthly income, lower BMI and individuals who engaged in smoking and alcohol consumption without regular exercise relative to their respective counterparts. The risk of definitive cognitive impairment in study subjects was significantly higher among women (ORs=9.85, 95% CI=2.88-33.59) than men and was lower in obese group (ORs=0.25, 95% CI=0.07-0.86) than in low weight groups, as well as in non-smoking (ORs=0.30, 95% CI=0.10-0.83) than smoking groups. The factors influencing the cognitive impairment of study subjects were sex, living status, monthly income, BMI and smoking status. Taken together, these results suggest that the levels of cognitive impairments among centenarians differed significantly in response to socio-demographic characteristics and health related variables. Especially, the levels of cognitive impairments decreased among those with poor health related variables such as smoking, alcohol consumption and regular exercise.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.5-9
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• 2000

Several nonpharmacological treatment methods of insomnia and their effects were reviewed. A long-term use of most hypnotics may produce tolerance, dependence, cognitive and psychomotor impairments at daytime, shallow sleep, and rebound insomnia on drug withdrawal. To reduce hypnotic abuse, nonpharmacological strategies have been developed to correct disordered behavioral and cognitive factors. These treatments aim at modifying maladaptive sleep habits, lowering physiological and cognitive arousal levels, and correcting dysfuctional beliefs and attitudes about sleep. These non-pharmacological or cognitive behavior treatments include stimulus control, sleep restriction, relaxation training, sleep hygiene education, cognitive therapy, and light therapy. Among them the stimulus control therapy has been demonstrated most effective as a single treatment or in combination with other treatments. Through nonpharmacological treatments, sleep latency was most significantly reduced and wake time after sleep onset was also reduced. About 50% of insomniacs reported clinical improvements in terms of nearly normalized sleep latency, awakening time, sleep efficiency, and reduction of hypnotic use. Compared to the hypnotic therapy, nonpharmacological treatments are more cost-effective and more readily accepted by patients, and their effects last longer.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.503-509
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• 2003

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to survey the prevalence rate of cognitive impairments and to identify the factors influencing cognitive impairment in the elderly in rural communities of Jeju Province. Methods. 590 elderly in 6 rural communities of Jeju Province were interviewed, using a questionnaire consisting of sociodemographic characteristics, health behavior, quality of life, and MMSE-K Results. Prevalence of cognitive impairment was 33.1 % (39.1 % of females, 16.76% of males). Prevalence of dementia was 12.4% (16.3% of females, 2.87% of males). Factors related to cognitive impairment were age, sex, education, standard of living, employment status, and subjective health state. Conclusions. In community health care for the elderly, factors relating to cognitive impairment have to be considered. When planning community health care, priority should be given to the elderly; who need care but live alone; who lack social support; who have a low standard of living; who experience discomfort in the activities of daily living; who believe they are not in a good state of health; or whose life satisfaction is low.