Accuracy of visual search was examined of 62 normal subjects and 48 right and 55 left hemiplegics due to cerebral vascular diseases. In those left hemiplegics, who responded normally in confrontation test of visual field including double-stimuli testing, the distribution of inaccuracy score of visual search was within normal range. In the left hemiplegics who responded abnormally in confrontation, inaccuracy scores were significantly higher than normal, and approximately 70 percentage of the patients demonstrated higher scores than the ninety-fifth percentile of the normal subjects.
In right hemiplegics, abnormal response of confrontation also contributed to higher score. Some patients with negative confrontation test demonstrated higher scores than normal, but they hardly reached statistically significant level.
The intelligence scale showed correlation with visual search in right and left hemiplegics with negative confrontation test. Left hemiplegics with positive confrontation test, however, did not show similar correlation.
While significant difference was not found between selective visual counting and multiple-figures copying in the normal subjects, the left hemiplegics with positive confrontation test demonstrated significantly higher scores in copying than in counting. In the latter subjects, the score was significantly higher when the figures were not arranged in order, being scattered.

View full abstract

The characteristics of the rheumatoid gait was studied kinesiologically. Sixteen patients with rheumatoid arthritis constituted the clinical material. They were all females, with ages ranging 25 to 60, with a mean of 43 years old. Arthroplasties were done in twelve knees to use the tibial plateau plate, Geometric type and Yoshino type I. Four knees were subjected to synovectomy and sixteen knees had not been operated. The normal females, with ages ranging 21 to 25, were studied for the comparison. Three kinds of kinesiological techniques, the force plate, cinematography and electromyography (EMG), were employed simultaneously.
The patient walks more slowly and powerlessly than the normal woman does. A walking pattern of a patient is compared with that of a normal woman. The both knees of the patient were replaced with knee prostheses. The cadence and the peak value of the accelerating force component are shown in a scatter diagram. Almost all legs of patients are out of the 95% critical ellipse of the normal free walking. The flexion-extension ranges of the knee and ankle are less in the patient than in the normal woman. The maximum hip extension, the maximum flexion and extension of the knee and the maximum ankle plantal flexion are small in the patient. The hip and knee joints have difficulties fully to extend in the stance phase. In the swing phase, the tiptoe is not elevated enough. The EMG patterns of the gastrocnemius and the rectus femoris are rather weak in the patient. On the other hand, the biceps femoris muscle works strongly. The characteristics of the rheumatoid gait may be caused mainly by 1) the small range of joint movements and the pain of joints, 2) the weakness of the muscles, and 3) the different patterns of the right and left legs of the same patient.
Only the patients who have difficulties in walking underwent the knee arthroplasties. That will be the reason why the legs arthroplasty showed more abnormal gait patterns than the legs without operation. A patient were studied twice. The second evaluation was 13 months after the first one. The walking pattern recovered in many points in this case. The operated knees were painless than the knees without operation. Two years after the arthroplasty, the legs seem to be able to perform stronger acceleration. Because the pain and contracture of the knee improved, the knee arthroplasty recovers the gait pattern to a certain extent. The treatment of other joints and recovery of the musle activity are also important for the better walking.

View full abstract

Ninety-one patients with spinal cord injury have been personally treated by author (70 male, and 21 female).
Twenty-one male and eight female patients have been single before and after injury. Ten of the seventy male had beed married after injury, while none of the twenty-one female was married.
There were the patients of thirty-five male and eleven female, in whom maintain to live married life both before injury after that. Three male and two female divorced after injury and one male was bereaved of his wife.
It may be factor of divorce to be disability in the sexual intercourse, but it was not such a serious problem that one might anticipate.
The physicians cannot forecast from the onset of spinal cord injury what the sexual function of any one patient will be. However, knowing the neurologic level of the injury, the complete or incomplete lesion, and the reflex status through the sacral segments, one can at least attempt such a forecast.
In the sixty-one male except nine male who have the possibility of the independent gait, three patients with lesion in the cervical segments, five patients with lesion in the hign and middle thoratic segments and four patients with lesion in the lower lumbar segments were successful at coitus.
Of these, two patients with lesion in the cervical segment, two patients with lesion in the high ane middle thoratic segment and four patients with lesion in the lower lumbar segments were able to ejaculate.
All patients with complete lesion in the lower thoratic segments were even unable to erect.
All patients who have the possibility of the independent gait were able to erect and ejaculate.

View full abstract