Factors Related to Positive Feelings of Caregivers Who Provide Home-Based Long-Term Care for Their Family Members in Japan

Background. The objective is to elucidate the factors related to the positive feelings of family caregivers who are engaged in home-based elderly care. Methods. The study utilized the data of a cross-sectional citywide survey in Japan. The survey was conducted with 1,821 subjects and the final analysis was performed on 435 subjects. Questions for recipients such as those on their care levels, causes of care, whereas the primary caregivers were asked about whether they had positive feelings toward caregiving, and whether their opinion was reflected in care policies. Results. The factors s that showed a positive association with positive feelings were “the caregiver’s opinion is reflected in care policies” (OR: 5.05, 95% CI: 2.60–9.87) and “the caregiver is in good health condition” (OR: 2.02, 95% CI: 1.02–3.93). The factors that showed a negative association were “the caregiver is a daughter-in-law of the care recipient” (OR: 0.42, 95% CI: 0.21–0.82) and “the care recipient is an elderly person with cognitive impairment” (OR: 0.36, 95% CI: 0.18–0.70). Conclusions. The study suggests the necessity of providing support for caregivers in terms of empowerment and health management. Furthermore, they suggest that special attention should be paid to caregivers at risk of being unable to sustain positive feelings toward caregiving

Multidirectional Approach to the Semantics of Have:Seeking a Unified Way of Teaching Its Polysemy to the EFL Students

Have is one of the most polysemous words. This workshop will discuss the semantics of have through three presentations and a discussion forum. The presentations will focus (i) on have in the causative constructions, (ii) on the “habitat segregation” of idioms using have, and (iii) on some constructions denoting location including constructions with have. In the discussion forum, we will discuss on the semantics of have and present an effective way of teaching the word to the EFL students.Article2015 Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences & Education PROCEEDINGS.2015:(2016)conference pape

ダウン症候群児の咀嚼機能獲得に関連する要因の検討

Down syndrome (DS) has the highest prevalence of any chromosomal abnormality identified in newborns. DS children have specific eating and swallowing difficulties such as poor tongue control, mouth opening, swallowing food without chewing, and both facial and occlusal abnormalities. DS children are also at high risk of aspiration, and swallowing food without chewing is considered to be a factor associated with increased risk of aspiration and eating problems. This study aimed to identify factors preventing the acquisition of masticatory function in DS children. The subjects were 75 outpatient DS children (44 males, age range 12 to 36 month-old, mean age 33.0 ± 7.0 month­-old; 31 females, age 12 to 36 month-old, mean age 20.8 ± 8.0 month-old), who had not yet acquired masticatory function, out of 319 who visited the clinic between October 2012 and October 2017. The information necessary for assessment was retrospectively extracted from the medical records of the subjects. The items examined included age, birth weight, nutritional intake, picky eating, tactile hyperesthesia, cognitive development assessed by Ohta stage, gross motor function, occlusal condition by Hellman's dental age, and tongue thrust/lip closure/mastication while eating. The relationships between the acquisition of masticatory function and these items were investigated after one year of rehabilitation. The revealed age, low birth weight, picky eating, and gross motor function to be relevant factors. Among these, gross motor function was found to be the factor most strongly associated with acquisition of masticatory function

Versatile Psychophysiological Potencies of Essential Oils, when Seen as a Function of Behavioral Task Assigned to the Participants after Inhalation

To elucidate the psychophysiological effect of inhaling essential oils, in this paper, we sought to assess the following 12 essential oils: basil, bergamot, cardamom, cinnamon, juniper, lemon, orange, palmarosa, peppermint, sandalwood, spearmint, and ylang ylang. As these being target odors, we focused on the verbal (semantic) and non-verbal (skin temperature) endpoints of the stimuli. In our experimental design, we managed to assign different behavioral tasks to the participants. The Uchida-Kraepelin test was used as a mental arithmetic task and listening to environmental (natural) sounds as an auditory task. In the verbal study, for an example, we conducted the sensory test twice, once before and once after the task. As a measure of the perceived odor quality in participants after inhalation of a given aroma, we employed a sensory evaluation spectrum. It is a bar graph in which the mean of the difference in score between pre- and post-task inquiry (post minus pre) was plotted against the impression descriptors. Taking into account of the obtained skin temperature changes between pre- and post-task inhalations, the subtle nuances between verbal and non-verbal expressions seen as a function of the two behavioral tasks assigned to the participant suggested that essential oils may have versatile psychophysiological potencies by the nature

Noninvasive vessel-selective perfusion imaging with intravenous myocardial contrast echocardiography

Background Intravenous myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) cannot identify each perfusion area of coronary vessels separately. However, by destroying microbubbles passing through a specific vessel using high-power ultrasound during intravenous MCE, vessel-selective perfusion imaging (VSPI) may be feasible. Methods In 10 open-chest dogs, intermittent short-axis images were obtained during contrast agent infusion using an ultrasound system. For VSPI, a probe coupled to another ultrasound machine was placed on the proximal left circumflex coronary artery (LCx). High-power ultrasound pulses were transmitted to destroy bubbles passing through the LCx. A negative contrast area on VSPI was considered to represent the perfusion area of the LCx (LCx-VSPI). A negative contrast area on conventional MCE during LCx occlusion and a region without staining by Evans blue dye were used as gold standards for defining the LCx perfusion area. LCx-VSPI was compared with a negative contrast area on conventional MCE during LCx occlusion and a region without staining by Evans blue dye. Results Despite lack of LCx occlusion, high-power destructive pulses produced a definite area of negative contrast on the LCx region. Decreased power of ultrasound pulses resulted in disappearance of the negative contrast area. An excellent relationship was demonstrated between both LCx-VSPI and a negative contrast area on conventional MCE during LCx occlusion (r = 0.93, P < .0001), and LCx-VSPI and a region without staining by Evans blue dye (r = 0.92, P = .0002). Conclusion: VSPI during intravenous MCE may be feasible for noninvasive assessment of perfusion areas associated with specific vessels.Asanuma T, Fujihara T, Otani K, Miki A, Ishikura F, Beppu S. Noninvasive vessel-selective perfusion imaging with intravenous myocardial contrast echocardiography. J Am Soc Echocardiogr. 2004 Jun;17(6):654-8. doi: 10.1016/j.echo.2004.03.011

シュウマツキ ガン ショウレイ ニオケル コウカルシウム ケッショウ ノ ケントウ

Hypercalcemia develops in patients with advanced cancer and severely deteriorates their quality of life. This study aimed to evaluate the influence of hypercalcemia on the clinical course of patients with end-stage cancer. This retrospective study included data on ２５３ patients who had cancer and died in the palliative care unit at Kondo-Naika Hospital in ２００８ and ２００９. Of these patients, １６（６．３％） developed hypercalcemia during hospitalization before death. These １６ patients included５patients with lung cancer ;４ with esophageal cancer ;２ with pancreatic cancer ; and１patient each with liver cancer, breast cancer, gall bladder cancer, renal cancer, or gastric cancer. The incidence of esophageal cancer in the patients with hypercalcemia was significantly higher than that in the patients who did not have hypercalcemia（p＜０．０１）. Of the １６ patients with hypercalcemia,１０had bone metastasis, whereas the other６patients had hypercalcemia even without bone metastasis. The main symptom of hypercalcemia was drowsiness in７patients, delirium in６patients, and general fatigue in ３patients. Fifteen patients were treated using bisphosphonates. After the hypercalcemia was detected, the １６patients survived for only a short time, with a mean survival time of １６．９ days. In particular, the mean survival time of ７ patients who did not respond to treatment for hypercalcemia was only ６．０days, and１patient with a calcium level of １９．１ mg／dl died the day after zoledronic acid hydrate therapy was initiated. Thus, hypercalcemia in patients with end-stage cancer seems to indicate extremely critical conditions with the worst prognosis

Jedinstveni obrazac djelovanja bisfenola A na ekspresiju gena čimbenika rasta živca embrionske mišje stanične linije N-44 dobivene iz hipotalamusa

We investigated the toxicity of bisphenol A (BPA) by determining the gene expression of nerve growth factor (Ngf) in the embryonic mouse cell line mHypoE-N44 derived from the hypothalamus exposed to BPA dose range between 0.02 and 200 μmol L-1 for 3 h. Ngf mRNA levels decreased in a dose-dependent manner, with significant reductions observed in the 2 to 50 μmol L-1 BPA treatment groups compared to controls. However, at 100 to 200 μmol L-1 the Ngf mRNA gradually increased and was significantly higher than control, while the expression of the apoptosis-related genes Caspase 3 and transformation-related protein 73 decreased significantly. These results suggest that in an embryonic hypothalamic cell line the higher doses of BPA induce a unique pattern of Ngf gene expression and that BPA has the potential to suppress apoptosis essential for early-stage brain development.U istraživanju toksičnosti bisfenola A (BPA) utvrđena je ekspresija gena čimbenika rasta živca (eng. nerve growth factor - NGF) embrionske mišje stanične linije mHypoE-N44 dobivene iz hipotalamusa nakon trosatnog izlaganja BPA-u u rasponu doza od 0,02 do 200 μmol L-1. Razine Ngf mRNA snizile su se ovisno o dozi, a značajne razlike od kontrolne skupine zamijećene su za raspon od 2 do 50 μmol L-1. Međutim, počevši od doze od 100 do 200 μmol L-1, razine Ngf mRNA značajno su se povećale u odnosu na kontrolu, a ekspresija gena kaspaze 3 i transformacijskog proteina 73 značajno snizila. Ti rezultati upućuju na to da visoke doze BPA u embrionskoj hipotalamičkoj staničnoj liniji stvaraju jedinstveni obrazac ekspresije gena Ngf te da BPA može suprimirati apoptozu koja je nužna za rani razvoj mozga

Production of Human Type Glycosylated Tissue Plasminogen Activator and the Role of Its Carbohydrate Moiety

To begin the examination of the role of human type carbohydrate moiety of tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) on the binding of the enzyme to fibrin，the naturally glycosylated enzyme was produced by microcarrier culture of human cells established from normal uterine muscle. The cells grown on microcarrers in Haunks' MEM supplemented with 10 % FBS (1.6 x 10 6 cells/ml) rapidly detached themselves from microcarrier in a serum-free medium (t-PA production medium) within 5 days, and it was difficult to produce t-PA for long time (t-PA production: an average of 3 IU/ml/day over 5 days). Addition of 0.5% beef extract to the serum-free medium suppressed their detaching from microcarriers. By regulating the pH (7.4) and dissolved oxygen(4 ppm) of the serum free medium，the cell density of microcarrier culture increased to 1.2 x10 7 cells/ml and t-PA was produced over 38 days (t-PA production: an average of 836 IU/ml/day over 38 days). Native t-PAs purified to homogeneity from the culture broth had the molecular weight of 63,000 and 65,000 containing 5.6 and 8.5 % carbohydrate，respectively (molecular mass of protein moiety was calculated to be 59,500). By enzymatic digestion of carbohydrate moiety in native t-PA，we obtained partially deglycosylated t-PA with molecular weights of 60,000 and 62,000. Completely deglycosylated t-PA was obtained by t-PA production in the presence of 10μg/ml tunicamycin (N-glycosylation inhibitor). This suggests that N-glycosylationof t-PA occurs while O-glycosylation is absent. The binding strength of these enzymes to fibrin increased with decrease of the carbohydrate content. The carbohydrate moiety of human type glycosylated t-PA probably modulates the binding strength of the enzyme to fibrin

Patient affect and caregiver burden in dementia

BACKGROUND: Numerous studies focusing on the burden of caregivers of dementia patients have been published. However, there have been few studies focusing on positive affect as an important factor affecting the caregiver burden, and only a few studies comparing the caregiver burden between different dementia diseases have been reported. METHODS: Three hundred and thirty-seven consecutive caregivers of people with dementia participated in this study. The caregiver burden was evaluated by the short version of the Japanese version of the Zarit Burden Interview. RESULTS: Positive affect scores had a significant relationship with the scores of the short version of the Zarit Burden Interview. Caregivers for patients with dementia with Lewy bodies or frontotemporal dementia suffered from a greater burden than those for patients with Alzheimer's disease dementia. CONCLUSIONS: The caregiver burden differed between people caring for patients with different dementia diseases. Positive affect of dementia patients has a significant relationship with caregiver burden, independently from neuropsychiatric symptoms of patients