A questionnaire survey was undertaken to investigate the present state of education and clinical training for rehabilitation medicine in Japanese university hospitals. Seventy percent of the 80 university hospital rehabilitation departments or divisions responded to the questionnaire. The educational programs included systematic lectures on rehabilitation medicine and clinical clerkships in 76.8% and 82.1%, respectively, of the schools of medicine. However, only 35.7% of the medical schools surveyed have adopted rehabilitation medicine as an independent course in their clinical clerkships, for which 21.4% spend a one-week program. Most medical students reported finding some small significance of rehabilitation medicine in their clinical clerkships, which would not contribute to their decision on the career to pursue after graduation. For the fiscal years of 2006 to 2010, about 45 new doctors per year entered the various departments of rehabilitation medicine. The factors that contributed to gathering more new doctors appeared to be the independence of the department or division of rehabilitation, the ample staffing for teaching, and the incusion of an independent course of rehabilitation medicine in clinical clerkships. The results of the present survey suggest that more departments of rehabilitation medicine should be set up to raise the level of education and clinical training for rehabilitation medicine to better attract the attention of young doctors.

In this study, we investigated a surface electrode stimulation method to support laryngeal elevation in patients with pharyngeal dysphagia, from the viewpoint of functional electric stimulation (FES). Informed consent was obtained from 15 healthy men and 4 patients with pharyngeal dysphagia. Digastric and stylohyoid muscles were stimulated by silver-textile surface electrodes covering the muscle belly. Laryngeal elevation by the electrical stimulation (ES) during liquid (water, 3ml) swallowing movement was measured by digital video camera. The laryngeal elevation trajectory demonstrated a hysteresis loop. The elevation distance of the larynx increased with a rise of stimulus strength. Laryngeal elevation by ES was 76.0% in the normal subjects and 86.6% in patients when measured during liquid swallowing. Applying FES for laryngeal elevation may assist in improving the swallowing reflex.