We reported our experiences with providing speech-language therapy to foreign language-speaking patients. The patients were English, Spanish, Chinese, Swahili and Persian speakers. The primary therapist was Japanese and had no experience in many of the target languages. Assessments were made and treatments were delivered to the patients with the assistance of interpreters and necessary information obtained from the Internet. Of the five patients reported, 3 patients were assessed as unimpaired or suffering only very mild aphasia and received no therapy, and 2 patients were assessed with severe aphasia and received speech-language therapy. It was indicated that the presence of an interpreter, the severity of aphasia and the accessibility to target language speech-language therapy information were the important factors in conducting foreign language therapy. In addition, arrangements need to be made to include a means to correct a patient's utterances, provide immediate feedback during therapy and translate all of the testing materials.

Palliative sedation (PS) is an effective way to alleviate the refractory symptom of terminally ill cancer patients, however it can be ethical. PS is now being implemented in general wards, and there is an urgent need to understand the actual conditions of sedation care for general ward nurses and improve the quality of care. In this study, a semi-structured interview was conducted with nurses working in a respiratory medicine ward of a core cancer treatment hospital. By Krippendorff’s content analysis, 16 categories of nurses’ actions/judgments, 8 categories of positive thoughts, and 5 categories of negative thoughts were extracted. Nurses have always sought the best way to alleviate the pain of patients and their families, and have endeavored to be close to their feelings. However, there was a difference in confidence and positivity regarding multidisciplinary collaboration and sedation discussions. It was suggested that the confident efforts of nurses may support the decision-making of patients and their families and consider methods for pain relief and QOL.