Influence of Exercise Dose on Rehabilitation Outcome…Shigeru SONODA 347

Leg Orthosis in Stroke Rehabilitation from the Acute Stage : Clinical Assessment Methods…Hiroyoshi HARA 350

Using Botulinum Toxin Type A to treat Upper and Lower Limb Spasticity following Stroke : A Multi-centre Randomized Placebo-controlled Study…Tetsuo OTA 355

Diagnostic Assessment of Inattention…Minoru TOYOKURA 359

Role of the Physiatrist in Stroke Patients' Return to Work…Hirotaka TANAKA, Toshihiro TOYONAGA 364

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Community-based Rehabilitation Outcomes for Stroke Patients in General Hospitals…Yosuke TOMIYAMA 369

Community-based Rehabilitation Outcomes for Higher Brain Dysfunction Patients…Norimasa KATAGIRI 373

Three Aspects in Evaluating Effectiveness of Early Intervention for Children with Pervasive Developmental Disorders…Hideo HONDA 378

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Definition, Prediction of Prognosis, and Evaluation of Cerebral Palsy…Izumi KONDO, Keiko ONOGI 380

Prognosis of High Risk Infants in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)…Hidetoshi TAKAHASHI 384

Surgical Management of Spasticity…Akinobu NEMOTO 387

The Problems of School Life and Cooperation with other related Institutions…Naomi HANZAWA 391

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The aim of the present study is to characterize the burden of parents who care for their children with disabilities with the use of a Japanese version of the Zarit Caregiver Burden Interview (J-ZBI) that has been successfully used to quantify the caregiver burden for caring for the disabled elderly. We performed a survey in which questionnaires including the J-ZBI (adapted for the subjects of this study) were given to 135 parents of children in a school for the physically challenged. We obtained 69 valid responses. For the parents, the mean J-ZBI score was 25.6 points and the mean CES-D score was 10.8 points. A lowered QOL for these parents was suggested by the finding that the mean SF-36 score was lower than for other persons of the same year and age in Japan. The parents reported physical strain more frequently than mental stress as the main caregiver burden. According to the parent group's mean J-ZBI score, we classified them into either a heavier or a lighter burden group. The parents who were in a state of depression as judged by the CES-D were more frequently found in the heavier burden group, while those with children who showed complete or modified independence in more items of FIM were more frequent in the lighter burden group. Services to support the physical aspects of parents caring for children with disabilities would reduce their caregiver burden effectively.

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