The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic affected the world, and its deleterious effects on human domestic life, society, economics, and especially on human mental health are expected to continue. Mental health experts highlighted health issues this pandemic may cause, such as depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Mind–body intervention, such as mindfulness meditation, has accumulated sufficient empirical evidence supporting the efficacy in improving human mental health states and the use for this purpose has been increasing. Notably, some of these interventions have already been tried in the form of telemedicine or eHealth. Korea, located adjacent to China, was exposed to COVID-19 from a relatively early stage, and today it is evaluated to have been successful in controlling this disease. “The COVID-19 telemedicine center of Korean medicine” has treated more than 20% of the confirmed COVID-19 patients in Korea with telemedicine since 9 March 2020. The center used telemedicine and mind–body modalities (including mindfulness meditation) to improve the mental health of patients diagnosed with COVID-19. In this paper, the telemedicine manual is introduced to provide insights into the development of mental health interventions for COVID-19 and other large-scale disasters in the upcoming new-normal era.

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Background Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is defined as a decline in cognitive state with preservation of activities of daily living. Medications such as donepezil and rivastigmine have been commonly prescribed for MCI, but their use is controversial. Acupuncture has been widely used in Korea and has been shown to improve cognitive function. The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of acupuncture for MCI and investigate the effect of acupuncture on structural and functional brain changes in patients with MCI. Methods This study is a randomized, assessor-blinded, sham-controlled trial. Fifty participants with MCI will be randomly assigned to the acupuncture group ( n = 25) or sham acupuncture group (n = 25). The acupuncture group will receive acupuncture treatment at nine acupuncture points (GV20, EX-HN1, bilateral LI4, and ST36) twice a week for 12 weeks. The sham acupuncture group will receive sham acupuncture treatment at the same points with non-penetrating sham needles. Both groups will be restricted from all other treatments for the improvement of cognitive function. The primary outcome measure is the Digit Span Test (DST). The secondary outcome measures are the Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST), Korean version of Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA-K), Seoul Neuropsychological Screening Battery-II (SNSB-II), Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), working memory (WM) task performance score, and structural/functional brain changes. Outcomes will be assessed at screening, baseline, 4 and 8 weeks, and after the end of treatment. We will also observe adverse events. In the statistical analysis, a full analysis set and per-protocol analysis will be performed. Discussion This randomized clinical trial aims to examine the efficacy of acupuncture treatment for MCI. Neuropsychological tests, psychological inventories for measuring depression and anxiety, and magnetic resonance imaging will be performed to investigate the underlying neurological mechanisms and the association between cognition, emotion, and brain networks following acupuncture treatment. The results of the trial will provide evidence supporting the efficacy of acupuncture and also add to the neurobiological understanding of acupuncture treatment for MCI. Trial registration Clinical Research Information Service, KCT0002896 . Registered on 25 May 2018. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s13063-019-3446-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the meditation-based intervention on obsessivecompulsive disorder (OCD). Methods: The following databases were searched up to April 2021: the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), EMBASE, Medline (via PubMed), PsycARTICLES, 4 Korean databases (Korean Medical Database [KMbase], Koreanstudies

Background. The management of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is becoming increasingly important. The Korean Medicine Senior Health Promotion Program (KSHPP) was developed in 2016, and it has been in use to date. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of KSHPP using herbal medicine and acupuncture for treating MCI and the safety of herbal medicine using liver and renal function tests. Methods. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of the participants with MCI. We assessed the Korean version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA-K), the Mini-Mental State Examination-Dementia Screening (MMSE-DS), and the Geriatric Depression Scale Short Form-Korea version (GDSSF-K) scores before and after KSHPP to determine its effectiveness. To evaluate its safety, the liver and renal function tests were conducted before and after herbal treatment. Results. We enrolled 1002 participants, and 500 participants satisfied the inclusion criteria. Of 500 patients, 364 (72.8%) were depressed and 136 (27.2%) were not. The mean MoCA-K score significantly increased by 2.77 for the entire sample and 3.22 for the depressed sample (all P < 0.0001 ). The mean MMSE-DS score significantly increased by 2.19 for the entire sample and 2.51 for the depressed sample (all P < 0.0001 ); the mean GDSSF-K score significantly decreased by 1.73 for the entire sample and 2.68 for the depressed sample (all P < 0.0001 ). Conclusions. Our findings suggest that Korean medicine interventions can improve cognitive function and depression symptoms in patients with MCI. In addition, the results of the liver and renal function tests were analyzed as surrogate outcomes to assess the safety of herbal medicine. Based on these results, we expect that Korean medicine interventions can promote the cognitive and mental health of seniors. However, as there were several study limitations, particularly study design, practice effect, and short follow-up, these results must be interpreted with caution. We need a further long-term study with a rigorous design to retain confidence in the effectiveness and safety of KSHPP.