This study aimed to examine the reproducibility and validity of sitting Strength of the Muscles in Hip Abduction with Flexion (SMHAF) in young healthy adults. A total of 34 young healthy adults (15 men and 19 women) were included in the study. The reproducibility of sitting SMHAF was examined by determining the value of the intraclass correlation coefficient using the test–retest method. The validity of seated SMHAF was investigated by obtaining correlations between sitting SMHAF, supine SMHAF, and quadriceps muscle strength for both men and women. The reproducibility of the seated SMHAF was extremely high, with an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.98. In both men and women, significant correlations as indices of lower limb muscle strength (p<0.05) were found between supine SMHAF and quadriceps muscle strength. These results indicate that seated SMHAF may be a reproducible and valid indicator of lower limb muscle strength in young healthy adults.

The purpose of this study was to examine the reproducibility and validity of using a markerless motion capture system to measure femorotibial angle (FTA). The experimental units included 36 legs of 18 healthy young adult males (mean age 20.4 ± 0.6 years). We measured FTA using markerless motion capture and optical motion capture. Reproducibility was assessed by the intraclass correlation coefficient using the testretest method, and validity was evaluated using the Pearson correlation coefficient. The results of the analysis indicated that FTA measured using markerless motion capture and optical motion capture had high reproducibility（ICC： 0.74，0.97）. Additionally, significant strong positive correlations were found between FTA measured using optical motion capture and markerless motion capture（r=0.74，p ＜0.01）. These results indicate that FTA measured by markerless motion capture has excellent reproducibility and high validity as an estimation of knee joint position in the frontal plane.

This study was performed to determine whether Japan Knee Osteoarthritis Measure (JKOM) in patients with knee osteoarthritis improves after walking using knee adduction-reducing shoes we devised for 1 month. The subjects consisted of20patients with knee osteoarthritis (all female, aged 63.8±7.1 years). We assessed knee pain using the visual analogue scale (VAS) and patient-oriented QOL using JKOM. To evaluate the effects of the intervention, a baseline period (A) and a subsequent intervention period (B) were established, and measurement values were compared between the two periods (AB design). Knee pain and JKOM total score and subscale of “Pain and Stiffness in knee”significantly decreased after the 1-month intervention period (B) using adduction-reducing shoes compared with values after the 1-month control period using general sneakers (A). The results of this study suggest that knee adduction-reducing shoes are useful for reducing knee pain and improving patient-oriented QOL in patients with osteoarthritis.

[Purpose] The purpose of the present study was to analyze factors for community-contained acute care hospitals that affect the total length of stay in acute care and rehabilitation hospitals among patients with proximal hip fractures. [Patients] Three hundred and thirty two patients undergoing surgery for proximal hip fractures were recruited. [Methods] Using the median value of the total length of stay, we classified the patients into two groups: a short-term group and long-term group. We retrospectively analyzed factors at the time of transfer from acute care hospitals to rehabilitation hospitals.