• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.97-111
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• 2002

Despite the substantial increase of the elderly population in Korea, welfare policies such as housing programs have not been developed enough to meet the diverse needs of the aging people. Particularly, caring for elderly dementia patients is becoming a serious social problem in Korean society. Families are still primarily responsible for taking care of the elderly dementia patients, and thus are suffering from tremendous caregiving burdens. In many Western countries, group homes, which are small-scale care facilities with home-like atmosphere, have become common housing alternatives for elderly dementia patients. Group homes effectively create a therapeutic environment while helping reduce the elder care burdens for the families. This article proposes to review group homes as a housing option for the elderly with dementia in Korea. The purpose of this article is to make suggestions for housing policies, separately or as a part of more general welfare policies. Based on the questionnaire survey conducted on 912 persons currently residing in Seoul and five different provinces, various possible policies and suggestions to promote establishing group homes and other facilities for elderly dementia patients are discussed in this article.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.231-243
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• 2018

Purpose: This study tries to explore experiences with a special rating dementia service among family caregivers of elderly people with dementia. Methods: The participants were 11 family caregivers of elderly people with dementia and had used a day-care service from the special rating dementia service for more than 3 months. Data were collected through individual in-depth interviews and analyzed using content analysis. Results: Three categories emerged: "reminiscence of an entangled life", "feeling relieved from a stifled life", and "hope for a better life through help and support" with 8 sub-categories and 23 codes. By using the special rating dementia service, the participants experienced relief from the burden of caring for their elderly family member with dementia and restored their social relations or family relationships. They experienced a positive transition in which their caring for elderly family members with dementia was integrated into their daily lives, and they expressed their desires for better policies. Conclusion: These findings imply the importance and necessity of the special rating dementia service. Practical and systematic family support programs are necessary and proactive publicity activities by the government and public agencies are suggested to ensure that family caregivers can easily use the special rating dementia system.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.411-422
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• 2011

Purpose: The aim of this study was to clarify the actual condition of elders with dementia who were registered in the Seoul Dementia Management Project. Methods: Data were collected from 5,312 elderly patients with dementia. Demographic included characteristics, comorbidity, and healthy lifestyle habits; data from the Seoul Dementia Management Project. Results: First, demographic characteristics were as follows; mean age at the time of definite diagnosis was 78.0 yr. There were slightly more women (69.3%), and 4.55 yr was the average length of education with 41.4% being illiterate or uneducated patients. Second, there were several comorbidities including hypertension (61.7%), diabetes mellitus (31.8%), hypercholesterolemia (10.2%), heart disease (11.1%), obesity (4.2%), and stroke (21.4%). Third, alcoholic history was found in 11.8% of the patients, and smoking in 9.8%. Regular exercise was done by only 29.1% of the patients with dementia. Finally, significant differences between men and women were found for the following; age, education, medical security, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, stroke, alcoholic consumption, smoking, and regular exercise. Conclusion: Authors expect that the present data will be used for establishment of dementia associated projects and policies.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.71-79
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• 2016

As various social problems have arisen due to the increase of the aging population, one of these problems is the increase of the elderly with dementia. The necessity of systematic and effective dementia management policies has been raised, as the increase of social and economic cost along with the growth of the dementia population. This study examined dementia management policy of Japan, where there is arranged and provided dementia management policy in advance. Especially, this study focuses on the contents of comprehensive promotion strategies for dementia policy(New orange plan) of Japan which was pronounced in 2015, and explores the development strategies for Korea by reviewing this plan. The suggestions through this study are provided as follows: inclusion of the support contents reflecting the dementia patients and their families, the necessity of coping for early onset dementia, organizing system for early diagnosis and prevention such as an early stage of intensive support team, a continuous progression for building the elderly-friendly community and conducting campaign for a deep understanding of dementia, are discussed.

• 한국노년학
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.1127-1148
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• 2018

Care-stress among the dementia caregivers has been an important issue. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the dementia elderly's symptoms on the primary caregivers'care -stress. In addition, the moderators, the expert support and the family support, were used to examine the moderating effects between the symptoms and the care-stress. The data was obtained at 10 day-care facilities and services in Seoul, Gyeonggi and Busan province in South Korea. A total of 191 participants were analyzed. They were the spouses or the adult children of the dementia elderly who were diagnosed with dementia within five years. This study was conducted in multiple regression analysis. The main findings are as follows. First of all, the symptoms that the dementia elderly show were significantly associated with the primary caregivers' care-stress. Also, the interactive variable with the expert support was statistically significant. However, it was not significant with the family support. This means that only the expert support from doctors, nurses or social workers decreased the caregivers' care-stress. The implications of this study are 1) the necessities of the education that covers the specific symptoms of the dementia patients', 2) the extension of the supportive policies for caregivers' care-stress, 3) the necessities of more allocation of the dementia specialists in the practical settings and cooperative systems among the dementia specialists in various fields, and 4) the enhancement of the family function among families who have a dementia elderly as a family member.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.151-158
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• 2021

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to identify the effects of general and oral health status on dementia. Methods: Questionnaires were used for the KDSQ-C (Korean Dementia Screening Questionnaires-Cognition) and to investigate the oral health status of the participants. An independent t-test was conducted to analyze the differences between general health and oral health status depending on the normal and suspected dementia groups. Logistic regression analysis was performed to assess the effects of general and oral health status on dementia. Results: Regarding the health status of the subjects assessed by the KDSQ-C, the higher the current health status and the higher the exercise status, the lower was the dementia level (p<0.05). During the assessment of oral health conditions in KDSQ-C subjects, dementia was more suspected in subjects with dental decay and periodontal disease than in those without dental decay (p<0.05). Conclusions: Dementia has been confirmed to be closely related to general and oral health conditions. Therefore, oral health-related programs are essential for dementia prevention programs. Since dental hygienists are best suited for providing oral care to older adults with dementia, it is considered essential to reflect their occupation in future national policies.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.167-182
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of care-giving stress of dementia elderly on the caregiver's suicidal ideation. In addition, mediating effect of self-efficacy was examined. In order to accomplish these purposes, a total of 336 who are caregivers of dementia elderly using self-report questionnaires. In this study, 325 elderly patients were used for final analysis. Date were analyzed by frequency and descriptive analysis, regression model analysis with SPSS 22.0. The analysis result of dementia elderly caregiver's symptoms showed that prevalence of suicidal ideation were 32.6%. Regression analysis was conducted under the control of dementia elderly's disease period, ratings, general characteristics and age, sex, educational background, occupation status, health status, living standard level of caregivers who were the subject of the survey. As a result, it was confirmed that the care giving stress had a statistically significant effect on suicidal ideation. Also, the self-efficacy of caregivers was found to partial mediate the relationship between care-giving stress and suicidal ideation(***p<.001). Based on this result, I suggested the various policies and the necessity of social welfare intervention to restore the mental health of caregivers of the elderly with dementia.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.13 no.12
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• pp.5816-5825
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• 2012

As the society has been ageing, senile dementia increase rapidly. Thus social costs of dementia treatment and management increase exceedingly. There is a desperate need of finding out improvements.. For example, foreign countries come with the solutions about this issue by establishing national strategy about Dementia, setting effective Dementia Management in national level and preparing legal systems. Older Welfare Act, Long Term Care Insurance Act for the Aged and Dementia Management Act exist as legal system of improvements. Improvement about this issue is needed due to more effective Dementia management and pushing ahead policies. First of all, the government needs to include dementia checkup into the list of national health insurance checkup toward senior citizen of older than 65-year-old. Secondly, as one of the characteristics of dementia, when more symptoms of dementia appear, there is less effect of treatment. Therefore, in order to reduce the social costs of Dementia, the government needs to promote Dementia prevention industry and early checkups. Thirdly, there is a need of setting a class judgement standard appeasement policy and expansion of using target. The reason of processing this statement is that there are difficulties of satisfying the needs of senior citizens due to current conformity of long-term pay recuperation according to laws of welfare.

• Journal of Korean Physical Therapy Science
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• v.14 no.1_4
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• pp.25-36
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• 2007

The results of researching on duties of physical therapist, understanding of elderly diseases and policies related with elderly welfare came out from the survey before beginning of education to physical therapists who attended National Elderly Welfare Physical Therapist Workshop during Sep. 11th to 14th, 2007. They have already understood about long-term elderly care insurance from the policy, and responded that those policies will bring more advantage to elders. On contrary, negative response had reason of low service quality. About elderly care system, there were positive answer of appropriate alternatives to support them, but also other critics had opinion of inevitable choice for living conservation. About understanding of elderly diseases, there were more comprehension of diseases as age gets higher, but most did not understand dementia and paralysis. Past experience and process of medical treatment for their disease were such arthritis, paralysis, broken bone, and dislocation of joint. Prognosis of technical training was mostly answered positively, but linking with other related disease programs were not welcomed. Most respondents thought that professional training were needed. The results of understanding diseases during senescent had high percentage of understanding as age and education was high, and it had eye upon statistics of the survey (p < 0.05) Most of those questioned responded that it is appropriate to have six working days per week and eight hours of daily work, however, present wage is not reasonable. Most of those questioned had negative response of work independence, and had an-swered that there should be certificates needed in related fields. For difficulties during work period, they had hardship instituting direction of treatment by lack of program, level of wage, and physical difficulties. Physical therapists averagely wished to have fewer than thirty patients per therapist. After the research, physical therapists who work in those facilities of elderly care systems agreed on policies, though it should not lower service quality. In addition, they were pros to have elderly care system, yet they are still inevitable option to maintain living. For work environment, the period of work was appropriate, but had different opinions for work independence and regular number of patients. Therefore, there should be more organized treatment program that also should be linked to other practical programs at this beginning point of the policy enforcement and the time that many therapists hope to work in elderly care system.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.190-204
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• 2022

Background: In Korea, the population is rapidly aging, and the types of households for the elderly are also diversifying. The self-rated health of the elderly is a valuable health indicator that can comprehensively represent the overall quality of life along with physical, mental, and functional health. On the other hand, studies on the association between household type and self-rated health of the elderly are still insufficient. Thus, this study analyzed the association between household type and self-rated health by gender in Korean older adults. Methods: Using data from the analysis of the National Survey of Older Koreans 2017, 10,299 elderly people aged 65 and over were targeted. For the accuracy of the analysis data, 9,910 people were selected as the study sample by excluding proxy responses, those diagnosed with dementia, and non-response. And technical analysis, univariate analysis using the Rao-Scott chi-square test, and logical regression analysis involving survey characteristics were conducted by gender. Results: According to the adjusted model with all variables, in both men and women, the odds ratio of self-rated health 'bad' in 'couple (with ill spouse)' was significantly higher than 'couple (with spouse)'. It was 2.54 (95% confidence interval [CI], 2.05-3.15) for men and 2.11 (95% CI, 1.70-2.62) for women. In addition, the odds ratio of self-rated health 'bad' in 'living with adult children' was 1.43 (95% CI, 1.09-1.87) for men and 1.42 (95% CI, 1.15-1.75) for women, which was more significant in women than men. Conclusion: This study states that there is an association between gender, household type, and self-rated health of the elderly, and the health of a spouse and cohabitation with children have a significant effect on self-rated health. As a result, in order to improve the health status of the elderly, health promotion and health care policies involving the characteristics of the elderly's gender and household type are needed.