コーディネーター介入による在宅虚弱高齢者同士のテレビ電話を活用したネットワーク形成

在宅虚弱高齢者の社会的孤立感の解消や自立生活の助長をはかることを目的として、在宅虚弱高齢者同士のネットワークをテレビ電話を活用し、コーディネーターの介入により形成する試みを開始した。対象者及びネットワークの形成を促進するコーディネーターを選定した後、対象者にテレビ電話を設置し評価基準を定めて介入をした。2ヶ月間の介入をした段階で、在宅虚弱高齢者同士のネットワークの形成に向けての動きが見られた

Eyelid Lengthening Combined with Penetrating Keratoplasty for Exposure Keratopathy in Graves' Ophthalmopathy-A case report

Upper eyelid retraction is a well-known component of Graves' disease. With greater degrees of retraction, corneal exposure is usually increased. We report here on a patient with corneal perforation following exposure keratopathy due to upper eyelid retraction. The patient was treated with penetrating keratoplasty and an upper eyelid lengthening procedure using Goretex^[○!R] dura substitute as an interpositional graft material. The exposure keratopathy resolved postoperatively and this condition has been maintained for 45 months since the operation, with a good cosmetic outcome and symmetry of the palpebral fissures

Expansion of PD-1-Positive Effector CD4 T Cells in an Experimental Model of SLE : Contribution to the Self-Organized Criticality Theory

We have developed a systems biology concept to explain the origin of systemic autoimmunity. From our studies of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) we have concluded that this disease is the inevitable consequence of over-stimulating the host's immune system by repeated exposure to antigen to levels that surpass a critical threshold, which we term the system's 'self-organized criticality'. We observed that overstimulation of CD4 T cells in mice led to the development of autoantibody-inducing CD4 T cells (aiCD4 T) capable of generating various autoantibodies and pathological lesions identical to those observed in SLE. We show here that this is accompanied by the significant expansion of a novel population of effector T cells characterized by expression of programmed death-1 (PD-1)-positive, CD27low, CD127low, CCR7low and CD44highCD62Llow markers, as well as increased production of IL-2 and IL-6. In addition, repeated immunization caused the expansion of CD8 T cells into fully-matured cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) that express Ly6ChighCD122high effector and memory markers. Thus, overstimulation with antigen leads to the expansion of a novel effector CD4 T cell population that expresses an unusual memory marker, PD-1, and that may contribute to the pathogenesis of SLE