In order to clarify the causes of dry skin and related lifestyle factors in community-dwelling elderly women, a self-administered questionnaire was conducted in women aged 65 or more, and the water content of their stratum corneum was determined. The items of the questionnaire included basic physical attributes (age and history of illness), bathing habits (frequency of bathing, frequency of soap use, kinds of soap, method of body washing, products used for body washing, temperature of hot water, etc.), interest in skin care, presence or absence of dryness and itching of the skin and the affected sites, usage of moisturizers and the sites of application, and experience of obtaining information on prevention of dry skin (media used for obtaining information, and the content). The mean water content of the stratum corneum in the below-knee region was significantly lower than that in the forearm, with a value of 9.4±4.3μS and 16.1±7.8μS, respectively (p<0.001). Some women had bathing habits that encourage dry skin. Women aged 75 or older had recognized fewer kinds of soap compared with women aged 65 to 74 (p<0.05), and the dry skin group tended to rub their body more strongly during bathing than the non-dry skin group (p<0.05). The percentage of women who had obtained information on prevention of dry skin was 35.4% and the percentage of those who had obtained information on dry skin related to bathing was 3.1%. Although dry skin is markedly observed during the winter, it is also observed during the summer, and thus older people frequently experience dry skin regardless of season. Since older people have few opportunities to obtain knowledge of dry skin prevention, further information should be provided to help them take preventive action, such as review of bathing habits for dry skin.

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The number of maintenance hemodialysis patients in Japan has been increasing every year, and as a result the phenomena such as increasing long-term hemodialysis patients and aging of such patients have become a problem. Long-term hemodialysis patients and aging of such patients have become a problem. It is important for maintenance hemodialysis patients to have nutritional management in order to receive an appropriate dialysis treatment. Since hyperpotassium, hyperphosphatemia, water, and salt have close relationship with meal consumption, emphasis is to be put on nutritional guidance. Therefore, this study was examined the effect of continuous nutritional and dietary guidance to maintenance hemodialysis. The subjects were 16 hemodialysis patients (7 males and 9 females) who had been given continuous nutritional and dietary guidance for more than 10 years since 2000, and conducted guidance once or more times a month. We studiet their weight increase ratio during dialysis and values in blood test. If we compared in 2000 with in 2009, weight increase ratio during dialysis, serum potassium level. Were not seen significant difference. This suggests that continuous nutritional guidance maintained the level within the standard value and the level was properly controlled. However, serum albumin level decreased significantly in 2009. When we examined the influence factors for the change of serum albumin, serum phosphate level, serum potassium level and weight increase during dialysis are suggestion possibly rated to decrease of serum albumin. Since serum albumin concentration has directly related to the vital prognosis of maintenance hemodialysis patients, it is considered that not only the limitation of phosphate and potassium from meals, but also the comprehensive guidance focusing on medication therapy and dialysis conditions is effective. In this study, according to the index that is influenced diet was controlledwithin the management value, there had effect of nutritional and dietary guidance. But serum albumin that is one of nutritional conditions marker was not controlled. Henceforth, we can considered that it is necessary that the comprehensive nutritional maintenance focusing on medication and dialysis conditions in nutritional and dietary guidance.

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Obtaining useful information for patients is difficult; hence, nurses examine scholarly information for finding solutions to clinical problems. The purpose of this study was to use composite elements of case reports for the theoretical modeling of a comprehensive conceptual framework so that seeking and accumulating data on specific individuals in case reports is possible. Case reports on eating disorder nursing practices were gathered using JMEDPlus database and analyzed according to thesaurus terms and elements, which corresponded to specific individuals. The elements of case reports on eating disorder nursing were classified into the following 3 domains : patient profile, nursing interventions, and outcomes. Furthermore, the patient's individuality was specified by using a structure such as "domain-class-elements." When the data in these 3 domains were accumulated, nurses could obtain case reports that described applicable nursing interventions for patients; subsequently, patient profiles and nursing outcomes could be selected. Information seeking models such as "individual map" are proposed for supporting processes that help nurses to specify a patient's individuality accurately. Accumulation and seeking of specific individuals in case reports will be made possible by this map ; this can help nurses in developing a habit of using such information for advancements in nursing.

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The rate of cervical cancer screening has been remained low in Japan. The purpose of this study was to clarify the difference among adult women on cognition of cervical cancer and cervical cancer screen, which the differences of screening behavior bring, using the cervical cancer screening self-efficacy scale and the health belief model scales for cervical cancer and screening. The results showed that the adult women having non regular screening tended to recognize the barriers to have cervical cancer screening to be stronger, cervical cancer screening self-efficacy to be lower, and the cognition of the susceptibility to cervical cancer to be lower than the other women. It seems to be important that to improve the rate of cervical cancer screening not only promoting the spread of knowledge but also reducing the cognition of the barriers to cervical cancer screening and raising self-efficacy.

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Recently, a 7:1 patient-to-nurse staffing ratio has been adopted in many general hospitals to improve the quality of medical care. Due to its effect, it has been pointed out that nurses in dialysis rooms that have no staffing standards are being assigned to different hospital wards, causing serious concern over the safety of medical care and impact on the quality of life (QOL) of dialysis patients due to the improper functioning of dialysis nursing. This study investigated the impacts on QOL of dialysis patients using the Japanese version of the Kidney Disease Quality of Life-Short Form (KDQOL-SF^<TM>) 1.3 based on the difference in nursing standards and number of nurses allocated to the dialysis room. As the results, 1) the number of nurses allocated to the dialysis room was 2.67 per 10 dialysis beds, suggesting the need to assign an appropriate number of nurses while considering aging of the population and the characteristics of patients with multiple complications. 2) Hospitals adopting the7: 1 patient-to-nurse staffing ratio had more nurses who worked in a dialysis room than those adopting the 10 : 1 or 15 : 1 patientto-nurse staffing ratios. 3) In public hospitals, the number of nurses per 10 beds was greater than private hospitals or clinics ; however, the number of clinical engineers per 10 beds was greater in private hospitals or clinics than public hospitals. 4) The patients have been undergoing dialysis under a treatment condition that exceeds the national level surveyed by the Japanese Society for Dialysis Therapy, and those undergoing dialysis in hospitals adopting the 10 : 1 patient-to-nurse staffing ratio had a higher Kt/V. 5) In hospitals adopting the 7:1 patient-to-nurse staffing ratio, the patients had significantly higher scores for "symptoms", "effects of kidney disease on daily life", and "sleep", that are subscales of the KDQOL-SF, and showed high health-related QOL. These findings suggest that the hospitals adopting the 7:1 patient-to-nurse staffing ratio maintained high-quality nursing, while not reducing the number of nurses in the dialysis room, and the appropriate nurse staffing improved patients' QOL. We also consider that active mutual cooperation with other healthcare providers to cover the current nurse staffing shortage can contribute to improving patients' QOL.

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Natural foods have gained much attention as awareness of health issues has increased in recent years. In particular, honey has come into focus as a food rich in both minerals and amino acids, thereby resulting in an increased demand for the product. Over 90% of the honey distributed in Japan is produced abroad; however, factors such as concerns regarding food, consumer preference for authentic products, and confidence in the product have led to an increased demand for honey produced in Japan, and attention has been drawn by local brands. Honey has also come under the spotlight for its medical applications, and several medical institutions in the USA and Europe as well as Japan are using honey for the treatment of wounds. There are many types of honey, and stability and quality management are essential to maintain a certain degree of efficacy. It is therefore necessary to establish a technique to compare the place of production and type of honey. In this study, we combined analysis of trace elements in honey, which has been previously reported in this publication, with pollen analysis, an indicator of nectar source, and compared these two analytical methods to investigate the ability of each method to differentiate between types of honey. Target pollen content in pollen analysis was approximately 60% for lotus flower honey and approximately 20% for acacia honey. Discriminant analysis of the types of honey determined using pollen analysis established that highly accurate classification of type is possible at 75% for lotus flower honey and 96.4% for acacia honey.

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