We devised a practice aimed at improving the ability of gait analysis by observation, and examined its educational effects and areas for improvement. The subjects were 26 physiotherapy students. The practice content was to put a joint of the lower limb of healthy subjects into a state of pseudo-range of motion limitation by taping, determine the change in gait caused by it together with a two-dimensional motion analysis software, and further consider the reason for the change in gait. The result of evaluating the gait analysis ability before and after the practice showed that the content of the gait analysis was abstract before the practice, but after the practice, it was possible to perform an analysis using the gait cycle that was already learnt. In addition, the subjects with a high accuracy of gait analysis analyzed the movement of the lower limbs from the viewpoint of the kinematic chain and determined it while comparing it with the normal gait and the movement of the contralateral lower limbs. These facts showed that, despite the pseudo-range of limitation aspects, there was a high requirement for practice to analyze an abnormal gait. It was also inferred that, to enhance practice effects, it was important to analyze the patient’s gait from the perspective of the kinematic chain and develop the ability to interpret motor abnormalities by capturing deviations or asymmetry from a normal gait.

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the relationship between lifestyle and cognitive threshold of salty taste in elderly women. A salty taste recognition test was performed using SALSAVE^®, i.e., stick-type filter papers containing 0.2-1.6 mg/cm² NaCl. The participants were assigned to two groups based on their salty taste recognition threshold, i.e., a low (0.2 mg/cm², n=18) and a moderate to high ( ≥0.4 mg/cm², n=25) threshold group. Age, body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, presence of hypertension, eating habits, and lifestyle were compared between the two groups. Age, BMI, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and energy and salt intakes did not differ between the two groups. In addition, the rates of presence of hypertension were not different between the groups. For the questions, “Do you often perform work or exercise that engages your body?" and “Do you like physical activity?", the ratios of the answers “often" and “yes" were higher in the low threshold group than the moderate to high threshold group. These results suggested that elderly women who maintain a low salty taste threshold were physically active.

This study examines awareness of second careers among head nurses who work at general hospitals. We conducted a questionnaire survey to determine their intention to continue working and their desired positions, locations, and employment status, as well as their nursing management skills that they could apply to their work. Of the total, 43.2% indicated that they wished to continue working in their current workplace. However, they expressed a preference for working as a member of a nursing staff on a part-time basis. The reasons for their desire to continue to work were classified into work enthusiasm and inevitable circumstances. Work enthusiasm answers included responses that they wished to use their experience to help others, and they liked to provide nursing work. The inevitable circumstances were mainly related to financial difficulties, such as the need to work for their living and concerns for their pensions.
This survey also revealed the head nurses' sense of insecurity related to reducing their responsibilities and position from a head nurse to a nursing staff level, as well as lack of confidence in their own nursing skills and ability to expeditiously and immediately begin working. This study indicates that it is necessary for employers to proactively disseminate information and provide nursing management education to deliver their technical trainings. This will enable head nurses to better apply their experience and skills in nursing management to broaden their options for second careers.

The purpose of the present study was to identify the difficulties faced by new nurses in the workplace. Six graduates of Chiba Prefectural University of Health Science were interviewed about the difficulties they reported facing in a questionnaire survey they were asked to complete.
The questionnaire consisted of 104 items. Of those, 13 items were reported as difficult by most of the subjects, which included: supporting family members; preventing bedsores; and managing the ventilator. The interview content was subjected to qualitative inductive analysis and 12 major categories of difficulties were extracted, including items such as difficulty in assessing patients’ conditions when the nurses only had a limited amount of information, difficulty in dealing with clinical situations in which they have little experience, difficulty in practicing care techniques appropriate for patients’ conditions, difficulty in dealing with multiple tasks, and difficulty in relationships with other healthcare professionals.
The findings of the present study show that new nurses who graduated from the Chiba Prefectural University of Health Science felt difficulty in assessing patients’ conditions when they had access to only very limited information, practicing nursing techniques appropriate for patients’ conditions in clinical situations in which they had little experience, efficiently and appropriately handling multiple tasks in a limited amount of time, and building relationships in the workplace.

Objective: This study aimed to identify the learning needs of nurses working in a general hospital regarding the acquisition of physical assessment (hereafter PA) skills.
Methods: The subjects were nurses with at least 3 years of post-graduation experience who worked at a hospital with at least 300 beds and who had given consent to participate in the study. The content of the survey was PA learning experiences as a student and after employment, and PA learning needs by system and by symptom and sign. A simple tally was made for each item. The open-ended responses were qualitatively analyzed.
Results: Nine facilities cooperated in the study. The number of responses was 103 (response rate 38.1%) and the average number of years of experience was 14.6. Among the subjects, 11.7% had no PA learning experience. Learning needs were high for the cardiovascular system and respiratory system in the PA by system, and for the state of shock and chest pain/palpitations in the PA by symptom and sign. In addition, five categories were identified from the open-ended responses.
Discussion: This study revealed that there is a high need to learn PA skills that directly relate to life crises and strong interest in improving clinical judgment skills, suggesting the necessity to create PA teaching materials that meet these learning needs.

Objective: To clarify what nursing students learn from online interviews with postpartum women in maternity nursing practicum.
Methods: Content related to learned knowledge was extracted from semi-structured interviews and answers to open-ended questions in a post-practicum questionnaire. This content was then subject to qualitative and inductive analysis.
Results: The study involved nine subjects and 151 codes were extracted. The codes were grouped into eight categories: “physical pain in the perinatal period," “psychological changes in the perinatal period," “affection for the child," “postpartum fatigue and the importance of family support," “trouble balancing childcare for one's firstborn child," “the need for nursing care for women in each stage of the perinatal period," “the need for nursing care with a continuous focus on the mother, child, and family," and “the need for nursing care tailored to the individuality of the mother, child, and family."
Conclusions: In online classes with active participation by postpartum women, nursing students were able to understand the psychological and social aspects of postpartum women and learn about the needs for nursing care focused on continuous nursing and nursing care tailored to individual traits. However, no learning about children was confirmed. The nursing students also learned knowledge that cannot be obtained during clinical practicum, which suggests that improving education methods could enhance practicum.

To consider how our university should implement functions of contributing to the community in the future, we examined the functions that single-faculty public universities of nursing and medical care in other prefectures serve their local communities, investigated the status of collaborations, and identified their characteristics.
We targeted 20 single-faculty public universities of nursing and medical care (excluding our own university), and data such as the status of collaboration related to community contribution were collected from case study descriptions of community contribution programs published by the Japan Association of Public Universities and from information posted on each university's official website.
The program case studies revealed that Assure functions were implemented in all the universities, and 17universities had implemented them together with Link functions. Both of these functions link values and knowledge of people's health and lifestyles, and contribute to building a sustainable and safe community. Furthermore, we believe that the addition of Enhance and Develop functions could enable universities and communities to mutually revitalize one another from the perspective of developing human resources needed in the community and creating attractive communities. In order for these functions to be implemented, multidisciplinary cooperation and collaboration is needed, and universities are expected to play a key role.