The purpose of this study is to clarify the art of feeding, focusing on interaction between the nurse and the patient with dysphagia through a series of bodily movements. This study used a qualitative approach. Data was collected through two methods ： 1） participant observation and 2） the dialogue from a recorded video of the art of feeding demonstrated by nurses. The data was analyzed using a qualitative inductive method. This study was conducted over a period of one year and ten months. The participants consisted of two nurses and three short-stay patients with dysphagia. The levels of experience among the two participating nurses varied from seven years to over thirty years. All the patients had dysphagia caused by a stroke. Five categories had been found during the interaction through body movements and swallowing disabilities ： 1） “Positioning for eating,” 2） “Waiting for contact through the tongue,” 3） “Complementing the tongue movement,” 4） “Making chances to chew food,” and 5） “Help swallowing.” The nurses visualized the oral states of the patients by touching their bodies, and by doing so they were able to understand the physical and mental states of the patients and to assist them. The movements of the nurses and patients were synchronized through the bodily communication. The nurses repeatedly arranged the conditions for the patients to eat through the entire process from recognition of food to swallowing. The nurses complemented the paralyzed bodies of the patients to assist their eating.

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　We investigated the intraindividual reproducibility of salivary amylase activity （sAA） in 69 female subjects. They included 15 elderly women with dementia （mean age＝86.7±4.8 years）, 23 elderly women without dementia （mean age＝79.7±5.0 years）, and 31 healthy young adult women （mean age＝23.1±4.5 years）. Dementia was assessed by the Hasegawa Dementia Scale-Revised （HDS-R）. Mean HDS-R scores for the elderly with dementia and those without were 11.1 and 27.4, respectively. A hand-held salivary amylase monitor （NIPRO model CM-2.1） was used for all sAA measurements. Each subject was measured twice at 15 : 00. Before measurements, the participants gargled with water and rested quietly for 10 min. Values of sAA were logarithmically transformed for statistical analysis. Reproducibility between two measurements was examined using an intraclass correlation coefficient （ICC）. Means of the logarithmically transformed sAA measurements for these three study groups were 1.64, 1.46, and 1.61, respectively. Differences in mean sAA among the three groups were not statistically significant. ICCs for the elderly with dementia, the elderly without dementia, and the young adults were 0.83, 0.61, and 0.80, respectively. These results suggest that sAA measurement by a hand-held monitor is sufficiently reliable, even for elderly patients with dementia.

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　A questionnaire survey was conducted to examine the relationship between empathy felt by nurses and their interventions to treat chronic pain. The subjects were nurses working in the departments of internal medicine and orthopedics of hospitals with more than 300 beds, and the survey items included the attributes of nurses, their feelings of empathy, and interventions to treat chronic pain. Empathy was assessed using Kakuta’s （1994） Empathic Experience Scale Revised （EESR）. The EESR categorizes empathy into the following four types ： “Type Dominant of Sharing Experience”, “Type Double-Dominant”, “Type Dominant of ISE”, and “Type Double-Recessive”, based on whether or not the person has sharing experience （SE） and insufficient sharing experience （ISE）. Questions regarding nursing intervention included 19 items related to “the viewpoint of pain assessment” and 14 items related to “methods for nursing intervention implemented to alleviate chronic pain”. Of the 19 items related to “the viewpoint of pain assessment”, the number of items to which the subjects had responded was defined as the total amount of collected information. An analysis using the χ² test was conducted, and a significant difference was noted between the typology of empathy and question items related to nursing interventions. The results suggest that empathy felt by nurses is associated with nursing interventions provided by them, and it affects their quality.

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　The purpose of this study was to clarify risky situations in the use of IV Poles within inpatient hospitals in Japan, and recommend safer IV pole use. This study surveyed 37 hospitals with 300 or more beds throughout Japan. Questionnaires were mailed to 1,110 nurses with three or more years of experience. The questionnaire queried nurses about risky situations and patients’ fall experiences while using IV poles. Returned questionnaires were 660 （59.5%）, with 629 （95.3%）, valid replies. There were 352 （56%） nurses who reported using an IV pole for uses other than administering an IV drip. Patient falls reported were 117 （18.6%） and near-falls 245 （39.0%） when using an IV pole. While the majority of nurses 486 （85.7%） realized the safety risk slightly less than half of the nurses 271 （43.1%） responded that they had never had IV pole safety training, and 88 （14.0%） nurses said that they still did not know how to use the poles adequately. These findings indicated that are risky situations involving both patients and ward environments, while using IV poles. The results also suggest that adequate training for nurses is necessary to address these risks.

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