BACKGROUND: In recent years, various studies have analyzed the concepts of “good death” and “quality of dying and death” in the world. The objective of this study was to compare community residents and physicians regarding their perceptions of “good death” in a terminal cancer setting in Fukushima, Japan.
METHODS: One thousand residents of Fukushima City (40 years or older) were randomly selected for comparison to the 483 physicians working in the same city. A self-administered questionnaire was used to query residents and physicians on 52 items about “good death.”
RESULTS: The response rate was 73.6% for the residents and 53.0% for the physicians. The concept of “good death” was composed of 14 factors for both groups. We elucidated the structure of the concept of “good death” in the general population and physicians in Japan, and only the third factor, “religion and spiritual beliefs, ” was the same between the general population and physician.
CONCLUSION: The data offers useful information pertaining to palliative care education for medical providers. Specifically, physicians should understand the differences between concepts held by the general population and physicians. For example, some same items were included in factor X (continuance of one's lifestyle) for citizen and factor II for physician. But contribution ratios of factor X for citizen and factor II for physician were different. This should lead to the better palliative care provision.

Objective：It is often difficult to provide effective functional training in patients with severe attention deficit caused by organic damage to the brain. Herein, we report a case of attention deficit in a patient with subarachnoid hemorrhage, which was successfully treated by virtual reality (VR)-guided rehabilitation.Methods：A 71-year-old woman was transferred to our hospital for rehabilitation after a subarachnoid hemorrhage. The patient suffered from severe attention deficit. She was unable to follow instructions from therapists and was unable to concentrate on rehabilitation tasks. We attempted VR-guided rehabilitation using mediVR KAGURA (mediVR, Toyonaka, Japan) in order to improve her attention deficit. The training was performed approximately 20 min every weekday, for 4 months in a 360-degree VR environment, with no background image initially. The difficulties in physical and cognitive tasks were adjusted by focusing on the size, range of appearance, and falling speed of each task object, so that even patients with severe attention deficit could respond to these tasks appropriately.Results：After the above-mentioned VR-guided training, the trail making test A, behavioral inattention test, and moss attention rating scale were improved from 300 s (could not complete the test) to 100 s, 119 to 133, and 55 to 98, respectively. In addition, in the clinical assessment for attention, the time required for visual obliteration tests was significantly shortened, and clinical symptoms associated with attention deficit were also improved clinically.Conclusion：VR-guided rehabilitation has the potential to be used as a new therapeutic approach to improve attention deficit.

Objective：It is often difficult to provide effective functional training in patients with severe attention deficit caused by organic damage to the brain. Herein, we report a case of attention deficit in a patient with subarachnoid hemorrhage, which was successfully treated by virtual reality (VR)-guided rehabilitation.Methods：A 71-year-old woman was transferred to our hospital for rehabilitation after a subarachnoid hemorrhage. The patient suffered from severe attention deficit. She was unable to follow instructions from therapists and was unable to concentrate on rehabilitation tasks. We attempted VR-guided rehabilitation using mediVR KAGURA (mediVR, Toyonaka, Japan) in order to improve her attention deficit. The training was performed approximately 20 min every weekday, for 4 months in a 360-degree VR environment, with no background image initially. The difficulties in physical and cognitive tasks were adjusted by focusing on the size, range of appearance, and falling speed of each task object, so that even patients with severe attention deficit could respond to these tasks appropriately.Results：After the above-mentioned VR-guided training, the trail making test A, behavioral inattention test, and moss attention rating scale were improved from 300 s (could not complete the test）to 100 s, 119 to 133, and 55 to 98, respectively. In addition, in the clinical assessment for attention, the time required for visual obliteration tests was significantly shortened, and clinical symptoms associated with attention deficit were also improved clinically.Conclusion：VR-guided rehabilitation has the potential to be used as a new therapeutic approach to improve attention deficit.