• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.68-82
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• 2020

Purpose: This study evaluated the dietary quality and nutritional status of elderly people using the Nutrition Quotient for Elderly (NQ-E). Methods: The participants were 204 elderly people over 65 years of age (38 men and, 166 women) in Seoul. The dietary information was analyzed using a questionnaire of NQ-E, which consisted of 19 checklist items, and 24-recall test data. The NQ-E scores and its four factors, including 'balance', 'moderation', 'diversity', and 'dietary behavior' factors, were calculated according to general characteristics of the subjects. The subjects were divided into the 'monitoring needed group' (62 > NQ-E score) and the 'good group' (62 ≤ NQ-E score) according to their NQ-E score. Results: The mean NQ-E score of the total subjects was 61.9, which was within the mediumhigh grade. The scores of balance, moderation, and dietary behavior factors were within the medium-high grade, while the score of the diversity factor was within the medium-low grade. The NQ-E score was 54.8 in the monitoring needed group and 69.3 in the good group. For the score of the diversity factor, the elderly living alone had a significantly lower score than the score for the elderly living with a spouse. The female subjects showed significantly higher scores of moderation and dietary behavior factors than did the male subjects. The daily intakes of vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin, vitamin C and calcium in the monitoring needed group were significantly lower than those in the good group. The nutrient adequacy ratios (NAR) of vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin, vitamin C and calcium in the monitoring needed group were significantly lower compared to the scores of the good group. The indexes of nutritional quality (INQ) of vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin, vitamin C, calcium and potassium were less than 1 for all the subjects. The monitoring needed group had a significantly lower consumption of total foods, vegetables and mushrooms than the good group. As a result, the nutritional status of the monitoring needed group was significantly lower than that of the good group. Conclusion: The results of this study show that NQ-E would be a useful tool for assessing the dietary quality of the elderly. In conclusion, a focused-nutrition education program and a useful guideline are needed for promoting the health and nutritional status in elderly people.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.324-335
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of dietary self-efficacy and illness beliefs, perceived benefits, and perceived barriers for the reduction of sodium intake in the elderly. A cross-sectional study was performed on 252 elderly people, aged 65 yrs and above, living in Daejeon Metropolitan city and Jecheon city, Chungbuk from March 21 to March 30, 2011. Dietary self-efficacy of three factors (resisting relapse, reducing salt and behavioral skills), perceived benefits and barriers, accurate and inaccurate illness beliefs were measured by 5 or 4 point Likert scale. With the increasing education level of the elderly, dietary self-efficacy, and accurate illness belief score increased and perceived barrier score decreased. Perceived benefits score was higher in the subject living alone compared to those living with siblings or spouses. Among three factors of dietary self-efficacy, reducing salt was scored highest and behavioral skills scored lowest in the elderly. Recording meal diary and reading labels for salt content in the items of behavioral skills showed lower score than other items. Accurate illness beliefs and perceived benefits were more scored than inaccurate illness beliefs and perceived barriers respectively in the subjects. The subjects with higher accurate illness beliefs, lower inaccurate illness beliefs, higher perceived benefits, and lower perceived barriers for the reduction of sodium intake showed higher dietary self-efficacy. In summary, accurate illness beliefs and perceived benefits positively correlated with dietary self-efficacy for the reduction of sodium intake in the elderly, whereas inaccurate illness beliefs and perceived barriers are negatively correlated.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.39-53
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• 2021

Purpose: This study examined the dietary behavior, health status and nutrient intake by considering the level of household income of elderly people using data obtained from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Survey (KNHANES VII) 2018. Methods: The study subjects were 1,355 elderly people over 65 years old (558 men, 797 women). Based on their household income, participants were classified into three groups: low-income, middle-income, and high-income. The variables consisted of general characteristics, dietary behavior, health status, health related behavior, and dietary intakes. Dietary data were estimated by the 24-hour dietary recall. Results: In men, the low-income group encompassed older, less educated, less employed, and living with family of first generation. However, in women, there were no differences in employment by the level of income, and women living alone had lower income than subjects living with family. Elderly men in the high-income group had a significantly higher level of nutrient intake (energy, protein, fat, phosphorous, riboflavin, niacin and vitamin C). Men in the low-income group consumed a significantly lower intake of fruits, seaweeds and eggs, including total food. Women in the low-income group had significantly less intake of protein, fat, calcium, phosphorous, iron, vitamin A, riboflavin, and niacin whereas women in the high-income group had significantly higher intake of sugar & sweet, eggs, and beverages, including total food. Conclusion: These results suggest that the level of household income is an important factor that influences food and nutrient intake in the Korean elderly. The socioeconomic status needs to be considered differently among elderly men and women when implementing food assistant programs and designing nutrition education programs.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.84-92
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• 2019

The deterioration of the urban heat environment due to climate change and the occurrence of heat-related diseases have emerged as one of the major social problems. This has led to more research on climate change, including heat waves, but it is mainly focused on climate factors. However, the urban heat island phenomenon accelerates the summer heat wave, and the increasing trend of heat-related patients in urban areas suggests the impact of the city's environment. Thus, this study analyzed the effects of physical and social characteristics of urban areas on heat-related patients in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do. The analysis showed that the ratio of the total area of residential, commercial and industrial facilities, the main source of heat energy locality, among the land use statuses, was not statistically significant, but the road area and the green area were found to have a positive and negative The population density and the percentage of people aged 65 or older, the percentage of people living alone and the proportion of people receiving basic living were all shown to be significant, with only the ratio of elderly living alone and the ratio of population density having negative effects. The results of the study can be used to develop urban policy alternatives related to local warming patients.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.10
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• pp.4493-4501
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• 2011

This study was performed to determine the levels of MMSE-K among the elderly people affiliated with long-term care insurance services in rural areas, and to reveal its association with related variables. The interviews were performed, during the period from March 1st, to May 31th, 2009, to 410 elderlies in rural areas. As a results, The prevalence of cognitive functions among all subjects were 80.5% of severe cognitive impairment, 11.7% of mild cognitive impairment, and 7.8% of normal. The prevalence of cognitive functions were lower according to the higher grade of long-term care insurance. And the prevalence of cognitive functions were lower in the group of lower educational level, unemployed, live alone, lower monthly income, bear for living expenses by sons and daughters and medical aid, lower visual acuity, with urinary incontinence, with amnesia, without regular exercise and lower frequency of going out than their respective counterparts. The hierarchial multiple regression analysis was used to reveal the explanatory powers of factors influencing on the cognitive functions level. Such factors as age, bear for living expenses, visual acuity, urinary incontinence, amnesia, regular exercise and grade of long-term care services were significantly influenced with cognitive functions. especially the factors of health status were significantly influenced with cognitive functions.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.21-31
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• 2018

The rapid increase of the elderly living alone is a critical issue in worldwide as it leads to a rapid increase of a social support costs (e.g., medical expenses) for the elderly. In early stages of dementia, the activities of daily living (ADL) including self-care tasks can be affected by abnormal patterns or behaviors and used as an evidence for the early diagnosis. However, extracting activities using non-intrusive approach is still quite challenging and the existing methods are not fully visualized to understand the behavior pattern or routine. To address these issues, this research suggests a model to extract the activities from coarse-grained data (spatio-temporal data log) and visualize the behavioral context information. Our approach shows the process of extracting and visualizing the subject's spaceactivity map presenting the context of each activity (time, room, duration, sequence, frequency). This research contributes to show a possibility of detecting subject's activities and behavioral patterns using coarse-grained data (limited to spatio-temporal information) with little infringement of personal privacy.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.58-72
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• 2019

Purpose: This study examined the food and nutrient intake of Korean elderly according to the anxiety and depressive condition using the data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Survey (KNHANES) from 2013 to 2015. Methods: The participants were 3,504 elderly people over 65 years of age (1,523 in men and, 1,981 in women). The dietary information was analyzed using the 24-hour recall data. The anxiety and depressive state was assessed using the self-reported scale EQ-5D in the quality of life dimension. The subjects were divided into the anxiety depression group (AD) and non-anxiety depression group (NAD) according to their anxiety and depressive conditions. Results: In the male elderly, the AD group had a significantly lower education and economic level and higher proportion in living alone than the NAD group. The percentage of eating lunch and dinner alone in the male AD group was higher than that of the NAD group. The female AD group showed less a lower frequency of dinner than the NAD group. The male AD group had a lower consumption of total foods, fish and shellfishes, seaweeds, mushrooms, oils and fats, and seasonings than the NAD group. With regard to the nutrient intake, the male elderly NAD group had more sufficient nutrient intakes than the AD group. In particular, the daily intakes of dietary fiber, riboflavin, niacin, potassium and iron were significantly lower in the AD group. To compare with the nutrient density of the two groups, the vitamin C and niacin intakes were lower in the AD group than in the NAD group. Overall, the nutritional status of the male AD group was significantly lower than that of the NAD group. Meanwhile, the female elderly had showed a smaller difference in nutrient intake according to their anxiety and depressive condition. Conclusion: These results of this study show that more nutritional education and emotional support are needed to improve the nutritional status and health of the male elderly with anxiety or depression.

• Journal of muscle and joint health
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.138-147
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• 2015

Purpose: The study was conducted to identify factors influence suicidal ideation among older adults with osteoarthritis. Methods: This study used a cross-sectional design with secondary analysis of the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Data for 174 men and 939 women who aged${\geq}65$, and were diagnosed osteoarthritis from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2010~2012 were included. Suicidal idea, age, sex, education, marital status, living alone, income, body mass index, smoking and alcohol use, exercise, perceived health status, activity limitation, joint pain and stiffness, depressive mood, and perceived stress were measured. Influencing factors and odds ratios were analyzed using complex sample multivariate logistic regression. Results: In the results, 29.9% of the elderly with osteoporosis had suicidal idea. The adjusted odds ratios (ORs) of suicidal ideation were significantly higher among those over 80 years older (OR=2.88, 95% CI=1.49~5.58), those with depression (OR=4.01, 95% CI=2.66~6.04), and those with high levels of stress (OR=2.76, 95% CI=1.79~4.24). Conclusion: Therefore, older adults with osteoarthritis should be screened for depression and stress to decrease suicidal ideation and prevent suicide attempt.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.742-752
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• 2015

The communications through the power lines are called as the PLC and this is a common name for the communication modes for the information delivery. This technology transmits the data through the power lines on which the information is stored with the form of high frequency signal. The characteristic of the frequency signal is that the signal can be separated from the power line through exclusive power line modem and transmitted to the terminal devices. In this paper, 'In-home Headcount' checking algorithm using Wi-Fi and taking above mentioned advantages is proposed, and the basic Technology for such Solitary Senior Citizen's Lonely Death monitoring system has been designed and implemented. The comparative analysis has been conducted in this paper with the test-operated and test bed-completed 'Hyosimi 119 Safety-Welfare System' which is still being tested since 2008. With the 'In-home Headcount Checking Algorithm', Wi-Fi connection/disconnection status and SSIDs of relevant Wi-Fis will be checked. We expect that our proposed method will become as the basic Technology which can prevent lonely deaths of elderly people living alone. Since the PLC technology can be normally implement all the functions used on internet anticipate that the technology could be applied to many areas to construct a new form of communication network.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Rural Health Nursing
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.24-32
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• 2007

Purpose: This study was done to provide statistical data for developing client-needs based welfare services in community welfare facilities. Method: The participants were 270 senior citizens, who visited a community welfare center in Gyunggi province, during the month of October 2005. They were asked to answer a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, $X^2$ test and Fisher's exact test were used to analyze the data from 221 of the elders. Results: 1. More than 50% of the respondents were women aged between 60 and 75, who had education levels above high school and who lived in apartments. Among the respondents, 54.3% lived separately from their children. 2. 70.0% of the respondents considered their health status as "good", even though they had more than one disease. Also 41% of the respondents were supported by their children, and 76.8% wanted jobs. 3. The respondents pointed out several programs such as languages, computer, singing class, physical activities (dances, billiards, Tai-chi and table tennis), needed to be included in the welfare center programs. Conclusions: Elders aged 60-75, educated above high school, living in an apartments, live alone or with spouse, and having frequent contact with children, were the most frequent utilizers of the welfare center. They want the welfare center programs in variety, including languages, computer, singing class, and physical activities.