Aspiration pneumonia is the fourth most frequeur cause of the death of Japanese. The disease accounts for 92% of the death of elderly people aged 65 and over. Pneumonia in the elderly is mostly due to silent aspiration. Aspiration is caused by disturbance of the pharyngeal reflex and cough reflex, which are profoundly reduced by the disturbances of brain activity. Mechanisms of both pharyngeal and cough reflexes are mediated by substance P. Strategy for increasing substance P should be further investigated. Mouth and teeth cleaning as well as sitting up straight for about four hours after meals significantly decreased febrile days related to respiratory infections. We also found that bactericidal clothes reduce infections in the elderly patients.

In order to evaluate the “Sho” (Kampo diagnosis) objectively, the authors attempted to quantify patients in a hypertension patient group by means of the quantification III method.
The first axis of symptom values expressed Deficient/Excessive tendency. On scattergrams comprised of the first-second, first-third, and second-third axes, it was found that the symptoms were separated in some groups according to differences in their “patterns of appearance.” Furthermore, the group of symptoms nearly corresponded to the Oriental medicial concepts of Kan-utsu (Stagnation of the Liver), Kikyo (Qi deficiency) and Jinkyo (Kidney Deficiency).
These results suggest that we can use the quantificatiom III method to objectively evaluate the “Sho” and distinguish the appearance patterns of symptoms.