The purpose of the study is to analyze the leaning in student nurses through communication training with local senior citizens and to comprehend the characteristics of learning obtained by such training. The participants of this study consisted of 15 student nurses who interacted with four senior citizens ranging between the ages of 60 and 80 years. A total of five categories: correspondence according to characteristics of the senior citizen, learning from advice, reflection, learning from lifestyle and characteristics of senior citizens, and preparation for practical training in the hospital, were formulated from analyzing the data further divided into nine subcategories. Student nurses gained experience by communicating with senior citizens in real-life situations. The experience allowed students to reflect on their communication skills and seek out future goals for their practical training.

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The purpose of this research is to clarify the gender differences in the relationship between caregiving-related daily hassles and tendency of neglect toward elderly in the family caregivers, and to aim at obtaining the basic information to contribute to prevention of elder abuse. Participants were 283 family caregivers of elderly people using nursing stations. The questionnaire included the caregiver's characteristics, recipient's characteristics, caregiving-related daily hassles and tendency of neglect toward elderly. We used data of 155 family caregivers, and examined the causal relationship model in which frequency of caregiving-related daily hassles influences tendency of neglect toward elderly through weight of caregiving-related daily hassles, by using the structural equation modeling. The results were as follows, 1) in male caregivers, degree of difficulty of using resources (0.538, p<0.05) and time constraint (-0.288, p<0.10) were associated with tendency of neglect toward elderly, 2) in female caregivers, degree of involvement with elderly persons who require assistance (0.248, p<0.10) was associated with tendency of neglect toward elderly. The above results suggest that reducing caregiving-related daily hassles is helpful to reduce the tendency of neglect toward elderly, although the affective aspects of caregiving-related daily hassles differ by gender.

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The purpose of this study was to verify the reliability of measurement value when width change of joint space (separation distance) due to the traction of the knee joint was analyzed with ultrasound imaging. Participants of this experiment were 10 healthy male (average age of 29 years old) and 2 raters. The method was to tug the left lower leg in 150N while maintaining the left knee joints in 50 degrees in supine position and measure the separation distance using ultrasound imaging. One of the raters performed the same exam procedure twice, and the other rater performed it once. The result showed the interclass correlation coefficient of about 0.8 for both the intra-rater and the inter-rater. The result of Bland-Altman analysis showed that the type of error was accidental error for both the intra-rater and the inter-rater. 95% confidence interval for minimal detectable change was 0.7 mm with the intra-rater and 0.8 mm with the inter-rater. The reliability of the measurement that we got from this study was generally good, and it clarifies that this method can be used in measurement of separation distance.

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This study was carried out in order to elucidate the operational efficiency of pointing devices (hereinafter, PDs) for personal computers including a mouse, track ball, touch pad, and joystick (hereinafter, 4 types of PDs) that may be operated by children with spastic diplegia. Regarding the method, 35 children with spastic diplegia used 4 types of PDs, and with the input of hiragana as the subject for measurement, the number of correct and incorrect character inputs was analyzed. As a result, though the validity of the number of accurate character inputs according to the 4 types of PDs with the examiner was high, verification by an interclass correlation coefficient was not applicable to the number of incorrect character inputs. No significant difference was observed as a result of investigating the exact number of character inputs between the mouse and the trackball from multiple comparisons using the Steel-Dwass method (P>0.05). That is to say, regarding the 6 test items for Erhardt developmental prehension assessment, it was believed that in children with spastic diplegia in which the developmental age of the upper extremities exhibits an ability of 8 months or more, the same degree of efficiency was exhibited in the operation of the mouse and the trackball according to the index for the exact number of character inputs, thus suggesting it has high practicability.

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In order to clarify factors in the understanding of and difficulties experienced with clients who have cognitive dysfunction by occupational therapy students, we conducted focus group interviews with 5 occupational therapy students. The results revealed that clinical training provided students with the opportunity to understand cognitive dysfunction through observation of the supervisor's conduct and motivation for self-learning. On the other hand, factors related to difficulties were multifaceted. Particular difficulties included (1) clients' severe, overlapping changing symptoms; (2) lack of sufficient study by students; (3) few opportunities for students to care for clients before practical placement; and (4) lack of knowledge of what the support provided to the client should accomplish. It was difficult for an OT student to understand the goals of the support provided clients with specific dysfunctions merely by observation.

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