臨床脳スポーツ医学の課題と展望

抄録

We are the first to introduce the name “clinical brain sports medicine.”, Previously a “brain and sports” category had been discussed only for sports head injuries. We have therefore attempted to systematize the field for research and to develop this field.
We introduced table tennis into brain rehabilitation ten years ago, and achieved good results. Table tennis is a safe and pleasant sport in which everyone makes quick progress without difficulties. It is the optimal sport for people of middle and advanced ages as well as for brain disease patients.
The following three points were examined through the table tennis exercise: brain blood-flow, brain high function, and brain rehabilitation.
The effect of table tennis exercise on brain blood flow was examined as follows: Six male volunteers played table tennis for 10 minutes and their brain blood flows were measured by SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography). An increase in brain blood flow was shown for four persons, no change for one, and a reduction for one. The increase areas were observed mainly on the cerebellum, brain stem, and frontal lobe.
The effect of table tennis exercise on brain function was examined as follows: A “KANA Pickup test” reflecting the grade of “dotage” was performed by 2,900 players who participated in the game of table tennis, and the degree of “dotage” was analyzed. The results demonstrated that, in all age groups, the table tennis players gave many correct answers and had few degrees of “dotage” statistically compared with 256 persons who did not play table tennis.
The effect of table tennis exercise on brain rehabilitation was examined as follows: Table tennis rehabilitation was introduced into the rehabilitation of 113 brain disease patients. The average period was two months. They started with easy rolling-over play, then showed gradual improvement. The treatment effect was evaluated by motor function, the degree of progress of skill, Benton visual test, Hasegawa dementia scale (HDS-R), and self-depressed scale (SDS). The results demonstrated that improvement was found by every appraisal method in many cases. It was thought that table tennis treatment had an effect not only on improvement of motor function but on improvement in a patient’s attentiveness, concentration, and endurance.
For the purpose of performing brain sports medical treatment, we established the nation’s first “brain sports visitor” in June 2002, at the National Nishi Beppu Hospital. There are as many as 24 medical staffs there. I hope our “Oita project” will develop not only over Japan but also over the world.