The purpose of this study is to clarify the educational needs and to examine educational program for the nurses at geriatric health service facilities. The subjects were 219 nurses working in 27 facilities of Y prefecture, 197 nurses who completed the questionnaire were analyzed. The items surveyed include questions concerning their background, self-evaluation on their nursing care and educational needs.
The items of nursing care that were low in self-evaluation and high in educational needs were four: dementia care, medical and welfare system, care planning and terminal care. Although subjective needs were low, four items were found to be important components of educational program for the nurses; they were family nursing, multidisciplinary collaboration, use of social resource and nursing ethics.

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Purpose: The purpose of this study is to evaluate exercise adherence of two health promotion programs.
Methods: We conducted one program consists of exercise and nutrition program (EN program) with 122 participants of the age 40 to 64 years old, another consists of exercise and peer support program (EP program) with 148 participants of the age 40 to 75 years old. Participants were required answering a questionnaire about exercise adherence and lifestyle change.
Results: One to 3 years after programs, approximately 70% of participants continued exercises that were recommended in programs. Besides, in EN program, many participants recognized improvement of their diet. In EP program, peer support was one of the main factors for exercise adherence.

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of 4-month dance lessons to participate in the "YOSAKOI-SORAN" festival on the Good Walker's Index "Kenkyakudo". Improving Good Walker's Index is equal to say improving the ability to prevent falls and fall related injuries.
38 women living in Hakodate-city, Hokkaido, aged 53-82 years participated in this study. The festival was held on the 2nd weekend of June. Dance lessons started 4 months before the festival, and were held twice a month until June. We measured Good Walker's Index two times; one at the start of dance lessons and the other at the time of the festival. Good Walker's Index and body weight improved at the time of festival compared to the start of dance lessons, especially the 10-m walking time.
We concluded that participation in traditional dance festival such as "YOSAKOI-SORAN" had good effects for improving health condition of elderly women.

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This study was performed to follow changes in the physical strength and skeletal muscle mass in middle-aged and elder subjects who performed periodic exercise once a week for 18 months.
The subjects were 4 females (66.5±1.7 years of age, mean±SD) and 2 males (70 and 76 years of age), 6 subjects in total (68.7±4.1 years of age, mean±SD). The duration of exercise was 60 minutes, and aerobic exercise, resistance training, and stretching were mainly performed.
Muscle strength increased, although the skeletal muscle mass did not, suggesting functional improvement of the neuromuscular system. Since the number of subjects was small, we are planning to increase subjects and add a control group to further investigate the effects.

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The purpose of this study was to report physical characteristics and life style habits of school children. The subjects were grade three to six, total of 305 school children (boy: 166, girl: 139) in Nagano prefecture. Physical characteristics were height, weight, seated height, and Rohrer index. Life style habits were extracted by questionnaire method.
Statistical analysis of physical characteristics and life style habits were as follows: 1) comparison of boys and girls in all subjects (non-paired t test, Mann-Whitney U test, and chi square test), 2) comparison of boys and girls in each grade (non-paired t test, Mann-Whitney U test, and chi square test), 3) comparison of each grade with respective sex (ANOVA, Kruskal-Wallis test, and chi square test). A significant difference was p<0.05.
The difference of growth and development between boys and girls were not prominent. The subjects of this study, especially boys, tended to play inside (watching TV and playing TV game). On the other hand, boys tended to affiliate in sports club, and girls tended to attend prep school and culture school.
This study showed actual condition (physical characteristics and life style habits) of school children. Further study is necessary for the healthy growth and development of school children.

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The purpose of this study was to clarify either gender difference or cognitive characteristics for an educational material regarding animal abuse and death, through qualitative data analysis of student's free-style answers in life ethics class.
At the first lecture of life ethics class, 97 college students (62 male and 35 female) read a diary of elementary school boy, and submitted short reports in 15 minutes. The content of the diary was "One of his friends beat an abandoned kitten to death, but he couldn't stop his friend. When he told his family about that story, all the family went to make a memorial grave for the cat. He wrote this in his journal which was submitted to his teacher, but received a comment from his teacher only saying that it is a sad story". For a qualitative data analysis of student's answer, eight compress factors were assigned as quantitative factors which were deducible from the child's diary.
As a gender difference of their reports, the number of description of "education of school teacher" was statistically higher in female (p<0.01). Either "the total number of characters" or the number of description of "words and actions of his father and family" also tended to be higher in female than in male (p=0.058 and 0.061, respectively).

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The purpose of this study is to make clear about fall prevention projects practiced in Japan and Korea and to reveal the diffence between them. To study projects concerned with fall prevention performed in Japan and Korea nowadays, we conducted a survey on internet for 23 government offices, facilities and institutions in Japan, and a survey by interview and questionnaire for 17 institutions in Korea. As a result, no programmed fall prevention plan like one held in Japan, nor a program named so was held in korea, although programs that may lead to fall prevention at second hand were held.
The difference in coping with fall prevention between Japan and Korea has been revealed by this research. From now on, programs based on scientific evidence to prevent elderly people from falling will be necessary in Korea.

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