Purpose: Given the idea that English language teaching in programs for prospective physical therapists is part of the area of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), the present study conducted an examination of language material so as to help define, from a grounded perspective, what can and should be taught in such programs.
Methods: Two language databases (corpora) were constructed from two sets of resources published in English: research articles (RA) and physical therapy (PT) textbooks. The RA corpus and the PT textbook corpus were comprised of a total of 397,874 words and a total of 546,666 words, respectively. Lexical characteristics of words in the two corpora were identified, and thereby terms specific to the area of PT were extracted.
Results: A greater number of technical terms were found in both of the corpora under investigation than in academic texts from other professional fields (e.g., economics). The study also showed that the distribution of PT-oriented terms in the two corpora reflected the nature of physical therapists' duties and that the two corpora shared more than 80% of total technical terms, out of which 1,600 words were selected to construct a list of physical therapy technical terms.
Conclusion: The two corpora revealed a number of common qualitative characteristics. The teaching of the selected technical terms can be facilitated by means of strategies on the learners' end that would help lighten the burden they face.

View full abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate both the exercise capacity of chronic heart failure (CHF) patients exercise capacity according to renal function and the determinants of exercise capacity in CHF patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD).
Methods: The study population was comprised of 119 male CHF patients. Patients were divided into three groups according to their estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR): group A (eGFR ≧ 60), group B (30 ≦ eGFR < 60), and group C (eGFR < 30). After dividing the patients into groups, exercise capacity and knee extensor and hand grip muscle strength were compared among the three groups. Furthermore, groups B and C were defined as the CKD group, and relevant factors related to exercise capacity were examined.
Results: Exercise capacity and all muscle strength indices decreased as eGFR decreased. Stepwise linear regression analysis revealed that knee extensor muscle strength and eGFR were significant important factors in predicting exercise capacity in CHF patients with CKD (R = 0.68, R² = 0.44, p < 0.001).
Conclusions: In CHF patients, exercise capacity decreased with declining renal function. Moreover, knee extensor muscle strength and eGFR were determined to be important factors in predicting exercise capacity in CHF patients with CKD.

View full abstract

Purpose: This study aimed at determining the effects of preoperative mental and physical impairments on early postoperative physical functions of patients after knee arthroplasty.
Methods: Thirty-eight patients with knee osteoarthritis (knee OA) completed the Timed Up and Go test (TUG) at 2-week postoperative follow-up as an outcome variable. Data analysis was performed using multiple regression models adjusted for several confounding factors.
Results: Among the preoperative conditions examined, lower knee pain at rest and higher self-efficacy were found to be predictors of better outcome at follow-up (p < 0.05). In addition, less limitation in the contra-lateral knee extension range of motion was associated with better outcome (p < 0.05).
Conclusions: The findings suggest that preoperative self-efficacy, knee pain at rest and contra-lateral knee extension range of motion are predictors of early postoperative physical functions in patients with knee OA scheduled to undergo knee arthroplasty.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract