With the world's fastest-growing aged population, dementia care has become a major public health concern in Korea, prompting the emergence of the policy of national responsibility for dementia care. Over the past one year since the introduction of the new policy, it has shown its strengths and weaknesses. Now is the time for us to put the current status of this policy into perspective in terms of the benefits for patients and caregivers as well as the cost-effectiveness in the management of dementia. In addition, we will suggest the optimal quality control system and education program for dementia care hospitals, highlighting the critical role of neurologists for the success of the national responsibility policy for dementia care.

The purpose of the present study was to determine the effect of 4 weeks course of motorized spinal decompression delivered via SpineMT(mobilization & traction) combined with therapeutic modalities on the treatment of patients with lumbar radiculopathy(LRP). A total of 15 patients with LRP (mean age, 36.63 years; age range 20-50years) participated in this study. 4 weeks course of spinal decompression delivered via SpineMT combined with therapeutic modalities was delivered to the patients for 6 days per week for the first two weeks, and four times per week for two additional weeks. The entire treatment consisted of 20 visits over 4 week period. Comparisons of changes in the muscle strengthening (MS), straight leg raise (SLR), and Oswestry disability index (ODI) at pre-intervention, after 10 treatment sessions, and at discharge (after 20 treatment sessions) were analyzed. There were significant improvements in the outcome measures of MS test, SLR test, and ODI score after 10 and 20 sessions of spinal decompression treatment combined with therapeutic modalities as compared with the pre-intervention(p<0.05). Spinal decompression treatment combined with therapeutic modalities appears to be a safe and efficacious, noninvasive treatment modality for patients with LRP.

This study was intended to implement ankle joint dorsi flexion training against ankle muscule strength weakening that erodes stroke patients' gait performance to examine the effect of the training on stroke patients' plantar pressure and gait ability. In this study, 36 stroke patients diagnosed with stroke due to cerebral infarction or cerebral hemorrhage were divided to measure 10MWS which are stroke patients' gait variables maximum plantar pressure by area of the sole by collecting data using an F-scan system during gait. Given these results of the study, compared to other training groups, the ankle muscule strength reinforcing training group showed statistically significant increases of maximum plantar pressure in the great toe, the toe and the first metatasal areas too and thus it can be said that this training increases forward thrust during stroke patients' foot end taking off and positively affects stroke patients' ability to perform gait.

Neck pain was commonly experienced by both adolescents and adults. The neck disability index (NDI) was the most commonly used self-report measure for evaluating status in neck pain. The objective of this study is to research the prevalence of the NDI in their 20's of college students in department of physical therapy. The data were collected from the NDI questionnaire of college students(males: 229, females: 405) for functional disability measures. Statistical analysis was carried out with SPSS 12.0 program, which was used for descriptive statistics, independent samples test and Pearson correlation analysis. The results were : First, 'headache' item was showed 'the highest prevalence' in second choice demonstrating the neck disability and 'pain intensity' in third choice. Second, female(46.4%) was higher distribution than male(36.3%) on score, percentage and grade of NDI(p<0.05). Third, the NDI grade was investigated that it is composed of 'no disability(63.8%)', 'mild disability(35.4%)', and 'moderate disability(0.9%)' in male and 'no disability(53.6%)', 'mild disability(44.7%)', 'moderate disability(1.5%)' and 'severe disability(0.2%)' in female. Fourth, there was a statically significant relationship between NDI grade and NDI items(p<0.05). These results have specific meaning as future clinical and epidemiological studies. Also, it is needed to education and preparation on prevention and management of neck disability among college students.

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