ABSTRACT
Background@#The Omicron variant has become the most prevalent SARS-CoV-2 variant. Omicron is known to induce milder lesions compared to the original Wuhan strain. Fatal infection of the Wuhan strain into the brain has been well documented in COVID-19 mouse models and human COVID-19 cases, but apparent infections into the brain by Omicron have not been reported in human adult cases or animal models. In this study, we investigated whether Omicron could spread to the brain using K18-hACE2 mice susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection. @*Results@#K18-hACE2 mice were intranasally infected with 1 × 105 PFU of the original Wuhan strain and the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. A follow-up was conducted 7 days post infection. All Wuhan-infected mice showed > 20% body weight loss, defined as the lethal condition, whereas two out of five Omicron-infected mice (40%) lost > 20% body weight. Histopathological analysis based on H&E staining revealed inflammatory responses in the brains of these two Omicron-infected mice. Immunostaining analysis of viral nucleocapsid protein revealed severe infection of neuron cells in the brains of these two Omicron-infected mice. Lymphoid depletion and apoptosis were observed in the spleen of Omicron-infected mice with brain infection. @*Conclusion@#Lethal conditions, such as severe body weight loss and encephalopathy, can occur in Omicron-infected K18-hACE2 mice. Our study reports, for the first time, that Omicron can induce brain infection with lymphoid depletion in the mouse COVID-19 model.
ABSTRACT
Purpose@#As dementia progresses, cognitive function decreasing leads to memory loss, speech degradation, time and space degradation and judgment degradation, which causes difficulties in carrying out tasks related to daily life. It was said that community-based non-drug intervention therapy for early dementia patients was important to participate in entertainment treatment, including activities such as awareness and exercise therapy, exercise rehabilitation, aerobic exercise, and art. @*Methods@#This study conducted 15 experimental and 15 control groups(experimental group : Fumanet exercise, control group : general occupational therapy) for eight weeks at the Daycare Center in Gyeonggi-do to find out the impact of the Fumanet exercise program on cognitive and depression functions of the elderly. The pre-post evaluation used KGDS, MMSE. @*Results@#There were significant differences between the two groups in the function of menopause, memory recall, attention concentration and calculation, and depression, and no significant results were obtatined in memory registration, language function, understanding and fracture. The Fumanet movement was judged to be effective in improving cognitive function and reducing depression for the elderly with dementia.Conclisions: The Fumanet movement was judged to be effective in improving cognitive function and reducing depression for the elderly with dementia.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: In South Korea, as growing the need of psychological support in disaster situation psychological assessment on stress after disaster is important to find out the factors affecting coping, and to plan intervention in the community. METHOD: The volunteers of Korea Redcross who live around K city, and the research team visited all homes at Jirye town, one of the high-impact area, 4 month after the typhoon. One of the family members who is over 18 years old, answered the self-report questionnaire composed of disaster experience, damage, exposure to traumatic event, and posttraumatic stress with IES-K (Impact of Event Scale-korea) He also, described his family members symptom related to re-experiencing, hyper-arousal, and avoidance. Six hundreds households were surveyed. RESULT: The prevalence of moderate to severe PTSD symptom was 36% of the subjects. The severity of PTSD was affected by gender, economic status and affected by damaged property, physical injury, worsening existing disease, getting infectious disease, amount of experienced traumatic event before disaster, warning, taking shelter, and subjects revealed differences in somatization as severity of PTSD. According to the description, community members had re-experiencing, hyper-arousal and avoidance. CONCLUSION: At a rural area, South Korea, community members have suffered from psychological distress after disaster. So psychological interventions are required as affecting factors and also to plan for warning and shelter in disaster situation is needed for preventing PTSD.