The aim of this study was to determine the content validity of activities parallel to the daily living of aged people living at home. The subjects of the survey were 441 people over 65 years old. The survey covered basic attributes (age, sex, educational background, family composition), social integration, self-rated health, as well as 25 items of activities parallel to daily living. These 25 items were analyzed by the principal factor method to determine the content validity of activities parallel to the daily living of aged people living at home. The correlation between each factor and the attributes of each individual subject was determined by one way analysis of variance and t-test. The results showed that there was a correlation to the following factors: “outdoor movement factor”, “social activities factor”, “public transport utilization factor” and “health care factor”. The results also showed that the outdoor movement factor was related to the self-rated health; the social activities factor was related to the self-rated health, sex of the subject, and, frequency of participation in local groups; and the public transport utilization factor was related to the presence or absence of a spouse. The results of this study are a new useful contribution to the development of a scale of activities parallel to the daily living.

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This study aimed to investigate the effects for timing of the presentation of knowledge of results (KR) on performance during training. Three experiments were conducted, and in all of them, the motor task was to achieve a grasping force of 40% of the maximum grasping power. In Experiment 1, the duration between the end of the motor task and the presentation of KR (KR delay) was held constant with no interval, and the duration between the presentation of KR and the next trial (post-KR delay) was varied. In Experiment 2, the intertrial interval was held constant at an interval of 8 sec, and the set of the durations for KR delay and post-KR delay were varied. In Experiment 3, KR delay was held constant at an interval of 7 sec, and the post-KR delay was varied. The results of the above experiments revealed the following two main findings:
(1) Performance degraded when post-KR delay was shortened;
(2) Lengthening KR delay up to 7 sec did not by itself affect performance, however, performance degraded more than (1) when KR delay was lengthened and post-KR delay was shortend at the same time.

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To investigate characteristics of neurological findings in the patients with cerebrovascular diseases (CVD) whose F-wave was not evoked, muscle tonus, tendon reflex and motor functional recovery stage (Brunnstrom stage) were examined in 10 CVD patients (4 males and 6 females, mean age of 49.3 years). In all of the patients, muscle tonus and tendon reflex were moderately or severely increased and motor functional recovery stage (Brunnstrom stage) was stage Ⅱ or Ⅲ.
In 3 patients, relationship between characteristics of H-reflex and F-wave and recovery of neurological findings following physical therapy was investigated. F-wave was evoked after physical therapy as neurological findings improved.
These results suggest that excitability of spinal neuron function may be significantly higher in the patients with CVD who showed high amplitude of H-reflex, but not F-wave, and that the appearance of H-reflex and F-wave may be related to the state of muscle tonus and tendon reflex.

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One of the main properties of skeletal muscles is elastic behaviour, which is related to the intramuscular collagen fibrillar arrangement. In general, immobilized muscle shows decreased elasticity, but it is not known how changes in elasticity affect the collagen fibrillar arrangement. We therefore examined the collagen fibrillar arrangements in the endomysium of the soleus muscles after immobilization of ankle joint of the rat. Five male wistar rats (age 18-22 weeks, weight 350-460g) were used in this study. Right ankle of the rat was immobilized in planter-flexed position using plaster cast. After four weeks, the soleus muscles were biopsied. Muscles were stretched with a 4g sinker, and fixed in 3% glutaraldehyde. According to the cell-maceration method, muscle samples were immersed in a 10% aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide, and then rinsed in distilled water at room temperature. The specimens were observed using a scanning electron microscope. Other muscle samples embedded in Epon, and blocks of muscle tissue were sectioned logitudinally. The sections were observed with a light microscope and an electron microscope. As a result ; The collagen fibrilles in the endomysium after immobilization were hypertrophic, and the transverse component of collagen fibrilles was increased. The sarcomere lengths after immobilization were decreased. We presume that hypertrophy of the collagen fibrilles after immobilization is affected by intermolecular cross-links, and that an increased transverse component of collagen fibrilles might affect the series elastic component of immobilized soleus muscle.

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Dystrophic chickens lose its righting ability from the supine position when they are fallen on their back. The wings become stiff and lose its flexible movements, causing a flexion contracture at the elbow joint as the disease progresses. The purposes of this study are (1) to know if a dysfunction of righting motion is a direct reflection of muscle weakness and/or a reduction of wing flexibility, (2) to find an index indicating the degree of a flexion contracture at the joint and (3) to see if the righting exercise on dystrophic chickens improves the wing stiffness and pathological changes in the pectoral muscle.
Age matched normal (line 412) and dystrophic (line 413) chickens were divided into four experimental groups. Group 1: Dystrophic chickens with active exercise everyday for 5 weeks, Group 2: Dystrophic chickens without exercise, Group 3: Dystrophic chickens were exercised for 3 weeks and stopped thereafter for 2 weeks, Group 4: Normal chickens without exercise. The righting exercise, namely exhaustion tests were made everyday. The scores were measured every one week. The wing angle at elbow joint (humerus-ulna angle: HUA) was measured with a goniometer every one week by two recorders. Pectoral muscles of normal and dystrophic chickens from every experimental group were removed at 3rd and 5th week and processed for histopathological examination. Sections were stained with modified Van-Gieson method to evaluate the progression of the myopathy.
Dystrophic chickens lost their wing extensibility from the second week after hatching when they grew without exercise (Group 2). The HUA in normal and dystrophic chickens at 5th week were 138.5 ± 4.8 and 127.2 ± 2.7, respectively. The reduction rate of angles was slower in normal chickens than in dystrophic chickens. Dystrophic chickens in Group 1 retained high level (136.4 ± 3.8) in wing extensibility at 5th week, while ones in Group 3 lost the HUA values rapidly after stopping exercise (130.8 ± 6.6). The scores of exhaustion tests tended to be higher in birds which have higher scores in wing extensibility. The histopathological observations of pectoral muscles revealed that the righting exercise for dystrophic chickens prevented pectoral muscles from the rapid progression of muscle fiber necrosis, the formation of vacuolated fibers, and the connective tissue infiltration and thickening. These results indicate that the righting exercise improved effectively the wing dysfunction and histopathological changes in pectoral muscle of dystrophic chickens.

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[in Japanese]

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