This study was conducted to investigate risk factors for senile dementia as well as care givers' stresses and thier needs for nursing care. It was done using a retrospective survey. A convenience sample of 100 senile dementia patients and 120 normal elders in a rural area was used. The tools used in the study were the MMSE-K(Mini-Mental State Examination-Korea) for dementia screening test and a questionaire developed by the research team. Data were collected through home visits by Community Health Practitioners. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, T-test, and Chi-square test. The findings are as follows: 1. There were significant differences in age, marital status, and religions between the two groups. 2. There was a significant difference in smoling behavior between the two groups. 3. There was a significant difference in past history of cancer between groups. 4. There was a significant difference in past and present elderfamily relationship between the two groups. 5. There were significant differences in intellectual activities, assuming major role in famliy and seeking other's help in daily life troubles between the two groups. 6. There were significant differences in stress factors such as child problem, family conflict, health problem and illegal behavior between the two groups. 7. The major problems out by families in caring for dementia patient were catastrophic reactions, dirtiness, mood change, devouring and tremor. The most serious problems faced by families was dirtiness, with catastrophic reactions, sleep distrubance, changeableness, and a suspcio-usness following. The care givers expressed chronic fatigue, anxiety, tension, depression, disorder in daily life, shamefulness, blame from neighbours and guiltiness. 8. There is need for geriatric hospitals, nursing homes, burden sharing, and counselling or education for family care givers. A replicate study in the urban area is recommended to validate the findings of this study. To explore the impact of stress in life and 'han' on senile dementia, a qualitative study is recommended.
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The problem of care of patients and families with Alzheimer's disease has become a conscious raising social policy issue in Korea. The government of the Republic of Korea has become cognizant of the situation and has begun searching for ways to remedy it. Thus, there is a need for a comprehensive understanding of the situation in which patients and their families are struggling and the enormous problems of care. With a realization of the urgent need, this study was done to investigate the situation and the care needs of families with patients with Alzheimer's Disease, and to compare the effectiveness of services utilized by the families in terms of cost and effects on patient's conditions and on family live. The Subjects for the study were 29 families with hospitalized patients, 25 families utilizing hospital outpatient clinics, 14 families utilizing day care facilities, and 16 families with homebound patients. A total of 84 families were interviewed by four trained interviewers using structured and semistructured questionnaires. The data produced from these interviews included: the patient's stage of Alzheimer's disease, patient's bizarre behavior, hours spent on patient care per day, family burden and quality of life, direct and indirect costs encountered in the care of patients, and the families' evaluation of the effectiveness of the services received. The data were analyzed to determine the relationships between family charactersistics, patient's conditions and services utilization. The effectiveness of each of the service entities was assessed through families evaluation and hoped for service and comparisons were made between services in terms of the cost-effectiveness ratios. After initial comparison of cost-effectiveness ratios, further analysis was done to compare between groups for incremental effectiveness for each incremental unit of cost to determine the most cost-effective service entities. The findings of the study are as fellows: 1. The choice of living arrangement and the types of services are a function of the stage of Alzheimer's condition and the economic status of the family. 2. Comparision of the cost of care showed that most expenses were encountered in by families with hospitalization, families using outpatient services, and families using day care services in that order. The least expense was involved in the care of homebound patients. The economic burden felt by families was in the same order as expenses. 3. The average number of hours spent on daily patient care was 9.9 hours for the outpatient clinic users, 9.7 hours for homebound patients, and 5.4 hours for day care users. 4. There were significant differences in the patient's conditions(CDRL), bizarre behaviors and the families's burden by living arrangement and/or types of service. However, no significant difference was found between groups in the family's quality of life. 5. The families rated the services of day care center as most effective for the care of the patients and families, except for a few families who had experienced some improvement in the patient's conditions. The outpatient clinic users expressed psychological comforts mainly in that the patient was being taken care of. For those hospitalized patients, families expressed the comfort of being relieved of the burden of care and that the patient is being professionally cared for. Form the analysis of the costs, hours of patient care, patient's bizarre behaviors, family's quality of life and burdens, and family's evaluation of services, it is concluded that up to the mid stage of Alzheimer's condition, the utilization of day care center services is found to be the most cost-effective, and toward the end stage of the Alzheimer's disease, it is hoped that there will be a establishment of long term or short term in-patient facilities for the protection of patients and preservation of the integrity of families for less cost. Thus, it was concluded that the family centered system of care is the most effective for Korea with systematic support systems developed for the care of patients and their families according to the needs of families as the patient's condition deteriorates.
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This study investigated the effects of education program conducted through individual home visit by CHPs, which was developed by the operational research technique for families of dementia patients. (Yeo Shin Hong et al, 1994) The study was conducted in the form of a primary experimental design with 43 people as subjects, including dementia patients and family member in several Myon areas of Chungcheong Namdo between June 10 and August 20, 1994. The data was collected by questionnaires through the home visit by the CHPs. The results of study are as follows. 1. There is no difference in the quality of life between before and after the education program. 2. Role stress 'before the education program' was significantly different than 'after the education program'. 3. There was no difference in the feeling of burden between before and after the education program. 4. There was a significant difference in the abnormal behaviors of patients between before and after the education program. 5. The knowledge of dementia by the patient's family increased significantly after the educaion program, compared to that of 'before the education program'. 6. There was a significant difference in the attitude of family members toward the education program on dementia between before and after the education program. 7. The results of analysis on the coefficient relationship of various variables showed that the age of patients and family members have a significant correlation with role stress(p=.01). 8. In the subjective evaluation of family members on changes in actual nursing actions and the improvement of knowledge and technique in terms of daily living, (including abnormal behavior of patients, adjustment of environment for patients, activity programs for patients, communication technique with patients, ensuring the safety of patients, clothing, meals and elimination, 60-65% of family members responded that their knowledge had increased. As for improvement in techniques for each item, the technique for communication with patients showed the greatest improvement while the action program method for patients showed the least change. As for the nursing service provided to patients, most respondents showed a positive change. The specific items for which more than 80% respondents answered positively were as follows: recognizing the demand of patients, getting patients to do simple house works, talking softly and gently, removing dangerous things, preparing comfortable clothes that are easy to put on and take off, and limiting water consumption at night. As a result of study, the following suggestions can be made. The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of an education program developed and applied for dementia patients and family members in the community. This needs to be compared with a similar study conducted in the urban setting. In addition, a community service program (ex: nursing horn and shelter) including the applicaion of the education program should be developed and the study done to investigate its effect.
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PURPOSE: It was identified that how many homebound bedridden elderlies and their primary caregivers were depressed, and which factors affected the bedridden elderly's depression. METHOD: The subjects were 191 homebound bedridden elderlies and their primary caregivers. The affecting factors were classified into two categories: bedridden elderly and their primary caregiver related factors. Then bedridden elderly's factors were classified demographic and disease-related factors again. The stepwise regression was used to identify significant factors. RESULT: The prevalence of bedridden elderly's and caregiver's depression was 77.8% and 67.0%, respectively. And the model explained 33.3% of variance of bedridden elderly's depression. Cognitively-impaired female elderlies who had depressed caregivers were found to be more depressed. And caregivers who perceived burden were identified to be more depressed. CONCLUSION: It is recommended that the health professionals need to identify bedridden elderlies and caregivers at risk of depression. Especially elderlies who is in poor cognition, those who are female, and those whose caregivers were depressed might be considered carefully in all counseling or follow-up. Also the primary caregivers must be helped to access already available formal and informal support.
PURPOSE: This study aims to identify the ADL and IADL of bed-ridden elderly. Also it is used to show fuctional status, and to investigate the content and the level of nursing services provided. METHOD: The subjects were 191 elderly who received visiting nurse service through public health centers in the Seoul Metopolitan and Chungnam Province. Data collection was conducted by public health center nurses during four months in 2000. Result: As for daily living activities, 100% of subjects had at least one difficulty in ADL and IADL. Among them, only 0.5% had moderate disabilities and 99.5% had severe disabilities by HFS, 27.9% were in a semi bed-ridden state and 72.1% were completely bed-ridden by JABC. The major service provided was a visiting nurse service which was preferable to the social welfare service. In the visiting nurse service, there was no significant difference according to the elderlys' functional status. In addition there was no standadization about the qualification of the visiting nurse, and single entry point for the nursing service. CONCLUSION: The researchers urgently suggest that a community based comprehensive service model has to be developed to respond to the needs of the elderly in Korea.
In this paper, we examined the depression of stroke patient's caregivers and analyzed influencing factors of the depression. The subjects were 215 caregivers who have takencare of stroke survivors in their home. The conceptual model of this study consisted of the caregiver's depression, perceived burden, illness intrusiveness, and patient's ADL. Modified Korean CES-D, modified subjective and objective Burden Scale, Illness intrusiveness(II), and Instrumental Activity of Daily Living(IADL) were used to measure concepts. Path analysis was used to test the model of this study. The results were as follows: 1. The mean depression score was 11.6 which was below the cut-off score of the CES-D. This score indicates that the subjects were higher than normal adults' mean score but not depressive. Eighty-six out of 215 caregivers(40%) were above the cut-off score. This finding was different from previous research results, and the reason might be the patients' capability of ADL. In a group of low capability patient's activities of daily living, caregiver's depression score was 15.5. 2. Caregiver's depression was positively related to caregiver's burden and illness intrusiveness, but negatively related to patient's activities of daily living. 3. The caregiver's perceived burden and illness intrusiveness directly influenced on their depression. Furthermore, the and caregiver's illness intrusiveness led to depression indirectly through their burden. A patient's activities of daily living didn't influence directly on depression but indirectly through caregiver's illness intrusiveness and burden.
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The purpose of this study was to describe the perceived burden of the stroke patient's caregiver and related factors to analyze relationships between perceived burden and social supports. A convenient sample of 225 caregivers who take care for a stroke patient at home participated in this study. Caregiver's perceived burden was measured by the objective and subjective burden scale developed by Montgomery (1985). Related factors of burden were studied in terms of the patient's instrumental activties of daily living, cognitive function, caregiver's demographic variables and caregiver's illness intrusiveness. The results were as follows: (1) The mean of objective burden score was 4.5, and subjective burden score was 3.1. These scores show that caregivers perceive moderate level of burden. (2) Caregivers' objective burden was significantly related to caregivers's illness intrusiveness (r=.62), patient's IADL (r=-.33), and patient's cognitive function (r=-.15). The subjective burden was related to the caregiver's illness intrusiveness (r=.29), the patient's IADL (r=.24), and the caregiver's age(r=.23). (3) The percentage of stroke caregivers who perceived physical support was 49.1%. The percentage of those who perceived emotional support was 61.0%, and those who perceived financial support totaled 37.6%. (4) Caregivers who received any type of social supports perceived lower subjective burden, and caregivers who received physical or psychological support perceived lower objective burden. These results emphasized the necessity of a rehabilitation programs for stroke patients and support program for family caregivers.
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Ego-integrity in Erikson's stage theory is used frequently among health team members related to the care of the elderly and has specific meanings within the context of quality of life in later life. However, the concept of ego-integrity in the elderly has not been well articulated in the literature. This study was conducted clarify and conceptualize the phenomena of ego-integrity in the elderly.
A Hybrid Model of concept development was applied to develop a concept of ego-integrity, which included a field study carried out in Seoul, South Korea using in-depth interviews with old adults who were admitted as a right person for research subject according to attributes of ego-integrity analysed in the theoretical phase.
The concept of ego-integrity emerged as a complex phenomenon having meanings in several different dimensions which encompassed several attributes.
Ego-integrity is a concept having needs that should be treated in a specific way and it is possible to enrich the meaning and methods to manage ego-integrity in nursing interventions for promoting quality of life so that its application may have effects that have positive impacts on the elderly's well being.
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Ego-integrity in older adults is the central concept related to quality of life in later life. Therefore, for effective interventions to enhance the quality of later life, a scale to measure ego-integrity in older adults is necessary. This study was carried out to develop a scale to measure ego-integrity in older adults.
This study utilized cronbach's alpha in analyzing the reliability of the collected data and expert group, and factor analysis and item analysis to analyze validity.
Seventeen items were selected from a total of 21 items. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for internal consistency was .88 for the 17 items of ego-integrity in the older adults scale. Three factors evolved by factor analysis, which explained 50.71% of the total variance.
The scale for measuring ego-integrity in Korean older adults in this study was evaluated as a tool with a high degree of reliability and validity.
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