Various R&D efforts have been made in the field of assistive devices, although there are fairly few that are used widely in practical scenes. A loop consisting of, 1) Extracting real needs including intermediate users, 2) Research and development based on the needs and actual scenes, 3) Manufacturing and evidence collection, 4) Intention support when introducing the devices, is important for development and introduction to realize the truly innovative and practical assistive devices.

Almost all pumps for presently available blood purification systems are roller pumps. If a small centrifugal blood pump is developed and a vascular access to peripheral vein is realized, it would be possible to downsize the hemofiltration systems for transportation. We have developed centrifugal pumps, DP2 and DP3, whose impeller diameters are 30 mm and are supported with a monopivot bearing. These pumps provide stable blood flow even at 50 mL/min. The hemocompatibility has been investigated in the present study. The hemolysis level of DP2 was found to be a quarter of a commercial extracorporeal centrifugal pump and that of DP3 was 1/20 times. It was also found that the prevention of pivot wear is important to keep the low hemolysis level. An in vitro thrombogenicity test using bovine blood revealed that the observed thrombus around the pivot bearing was small enough to be trapped in a filter.

Unilateral spatial neglect (USN) is the failure to report, respond, or orient to novel or meaningful stimuli that are presented on the side opposite to a brain lesion. It is often associated with stroke and is more severe following right hemisphere damage. In this study, we introduced a movable slit USN rehabilitation system to promote concurrent attentional disengagement from stimuli ipsilateral to the lesion and attentional movement to the side contralateral to the lesion. Ten patients with USN received the intervention, and a "Pre-Post" design was used to assess the effects of the system. The outcome measurements included two exploration tasks (i.e., exploration of randomly structured multiple object arrays) and two bisection tasks (i.e., focusing attention on the horizontal extent of a single specific object). The results showed significant improvements in the exploration tasks, but not in the bisection tasks. These findings suggest the possibility that the movable slit system could improve the exploration ability in patients with USN.

In providing support for persons with communication disabilities, we use a versatile voice-output communication aid VCAN developed in-house. Supporters determine specifications of each user's VCAN according to his or her communication ability and living environment, and provide the frequent updates. Communications abilities are usually evaluated using language-tests and through daily observations. Additionally, daily log-data updates allow us to evaluate subjects' communication abilities objectively, from a much border perspective. In order to clarify the relationship between conventional language-test results and the outcome of our support system, we carried out experiments using 5 subjects with different communication disabilities. We conducted a detailed analysis of log-data over period of three consecutive months and compared its outcome with results of the Sign-Significate Relations developed by the National Rehabilitation Center of Japan. Additionally, we analyzed how the use of each communication function changes, over time. All results suggested that the log-data analysis is effective for complementing and reinforcing Sign-Significate Relation results, and evaluating habituation of VCAN-based communication, the number of communication scenes and usability of user's VCAN.