Purpose: The purpose of this study was to clarify what kind of support visiting nurses provide to elementary school children living with mentally ill parents, and what kind of awareness they have about this support.
Methods: We conducted a qualitative descriptive analysis by making semi-structured interviews with five visiting nurses.
Results: Visiting nurses observed and assessed children even when they had little interaction with them, and connected them to social resources as needed. Yet, they did not think of them as support for children. They viewed their own role as a supporter of their parents, and support for the children as something beyond their own role. They also faced social prejudice against mental illness and difficulties in cooperating with other social resources due to the feeling that both parents and visiting nurses were separated from other social resources.
Discussion: Rather than “support for parents” or “support for children,” it is necessary to consider the whole family as the scope of support, and to build a network in which supporters can share information and the roles of support.

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The purpose of the present study is to elucidate matters that are considered necessary for midwives in charge of in-hospital midwife-led care for the continuation of in-hospital midwife- led care. We conducted semi-structured interviews of 18 midwives in charge of in-hospital midwife-led care at four institutions that had introduced in-hospital midwife-led care in prefecture A. The data obtained was qualitatively analyzed by an inductive approach. As a result, we extracted six categories, including “development of a system that pregnant and parturient women can use with ease,” “fulfillment of the responsibilities and roles as a midwife,” “realization of the essential abilities of midwives,” “realization of the level of satisfaction and needs of pregnant and parturient women and their family members,” “conscious mutual understanding among midwives and other professions,” and “the existence of strong support.” It was suggested that a system to foster midwives with management skills be developed to ensure and improve the quality of the system established for in-hospital midwife-led care. Furthermore, it was thought that the midwife in charge should maintain close communication with administrators, related occupations such as midwives and nurses to build a relationship of trust.

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 Thailand has the second largest percentage of elderly people in Southeast Asia, facing an aged society in 2021. Various assistive technologies support older adults’independent living in the community, and smartphones are devices that help their lives and can be used to pro- mote participation in activities. This study explored experiences regarding the beneficial role played by smartphones in the daily activities of older Thai adults. Individual interviews were conducted with a purposeful sample of 20 older adults(8 women and 12 men aged 60 ─73) followed by a semi-structured interview guide. The collected data were analyzed using the- matic analysis. The following three roles of using smartphones were identified:(1)enriching individual worthy activities,(2)orienting participation in activities, and(3)conserving re- sources. Participants used smartphones to fulfill their personal needs and deal with informa- tion to make decisions and prepare for managing their daily activities. Using smartphones could increase older adults’ability to complete tasks, even when they face environmental changes and the typical difficulties of aging. Occupational therapists could provide smart- phones as an alternative assistive device to engage their clients in purposeful activities and support their lives to promote successful aging.

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This study’s aim is to identify existing findings and research gaps in post-learning changes in resting-state functional connectivity(RSFC), the basis for motor learning, using a scoping review. Using PubMed and Scopus, we extracted studies that examined changes in RSFC associated with motor learning with unilateral hand and analyzed the content by considering learning task, duration, and age group. As a result, 17 studies were extracted and analyzed. For motor learning tasks, there were 15 papers with simple movements and 2 papers with complex movements, and the changes in RSFC varied depending on the type of task. Regarding study duration, there were 12 papers with short practices and 5 papers with long practices, with RSFC decreasing with longer duration. For the subjects’ age, there were 15 papers with healthy young subjects and 2 papers with elderly subjects, and the elderly subjects had decreased RSFC across a wider range of brain regions than the young subjects. However, knowledge about the elderly and their learning of complex movements remains lacking. Therefore, further study is needed to apply this knowledge to rehabilitation to support the acquisition of complex movements in the elderly and in daily life.

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In aging society in Japan, the number of patients with cardiovascular disease, and respiratory disease is expected to increase. After hospital treatment, long-term follow-up at home will be necessary. The present study aimed to clarify the practice of occupational therapy for cardiovascular and respiratory diseases in home-visit rehabilitation‹occupational therapists work in visiting nursing station›.Questionnaires were mailed to 600 occupational therapists in Japan and 218 of them responded‹response rate; 36.3%›.The results showed that about 70% of the respondents provided occupational therapy for patients with cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Occupational therapy assessment, goal setting, and inter vention focused not only on body function but also on daily life performance. In addition, when occupational therapy, it became clear that they had problems with "intervention" "interprofessional collaboration" "knowledge" "risk management" and "anxiety."

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Survivors of chronic stroke with severe hemiparesis exhibit a significant reduction in upper-extremity function and quality of life. The condition frequently affects posture control and accelerates the onset of secondary problems such as proneness to falls and being bedridden. Reduced upper-extremity movement with severe hemiparesis may affect subsequent long-term care and decrease the quality of life. Therefore, an environment where such patients can receive upper-extremity training without difficulty is important. Accordingly, in this study, we propose a program that combines purposeful activity and electrical stimulation therapy, which has been proven to improve the daily lives of patients, called Purposeful Activity-based Electrical Stimulation Therapy. We present a practical structure for administering this therapy to survivors of chronic stroke with severe hemiparesis and recommend the use of an occupational therapy program that further enhances adaptability to life.

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We report the process of acquiring clinical skills of occupational therapy student(s OTS) using the clinical clerkship(CCS)method in the comprehensive clinical training of convalescent rehabilitation hospitals. OTS participate in occupational therapy for all patients in charge of clinical educator(s CE), including schedule management and simulated medical record writing, based on the four-step learning process of CCS, and gain experience in clinical skills. We also used life behavior improvement management to understand clinical reasoning. As a result, the CCS learning process of OTS reached the Fading level of some tests and IADL training. It is considered that the acquisition of clinical skills of OTS could be promoted by actively repeating tours, imitations, and implementations after receiving explanations of clinical reasoning from CE. In addition, the use of management tool for daily life performance is considered to be effective for learning clinical reasoning such as focusing problems and predicting prognosis.

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