This study aimed to identify the messages disseminated by television commercials about over-the-counter (OTC) oral drugs for analyzing the narrative structure of contents at a view of community pharmacists. We analyzed 92 television commercials about OTC oral drugs aired by 5 key commercial broadcasting stations from April 2013 to March 2014. We did the content analysis of the transcripts of television commercials ; 20 labels and 8 categories were found. The categories were “interesting the story,” “inspired desire for symptom improvement,” “emphasized attraction of the products,” “standing as a specific cure,” “products created a state of happiness,” “information about effect-efficacy and dosage,” “showing something other than drug-induced symptomatic improvement,” and “encouraging consumers to purchase the product.” The most common used categories to start TV-CM stories were “interesting the story” or “inspired desire for symptom improvement” and to end it was “encouraging consumers to purchase the product.” The message disseminated by television commercials about OTC oral drugs might misinform consumers regarding OTC drugs and self-care. Pharmacists should communicate with consumers to clear these misunderstandings instead of simply providing information about the effect-efficacy and dosage of OTC drugs.

This study aimed to determine the different changes of muscle hardness between the human rectus femoris (RF) and vastus intermedius muscle (VI) after maximal knee extension exercise. Eight healthy men (23.0±2.6 years) performed maximal isometric contraction (IM), concentric contraction (CC), and eccentric contraction (EC) exercises of the knee extensors. Muscle hardness (i.e., strain ratio, SR) and thickness in the proximal, middle, and distal parts of RF and VI were measured by using strain elastography before and after exercises. The rates of change between the values were calculated as values before exercise 100%. For VI, a significant main effect in “part” was found in IM and EC exercises in SR. Results show that SR in the distal part (IM, 89.0±27.2%; EC, 78.2±26.9%) was significantly lower than that in the middle part (IM, 105.5±34.3%; EC, 91.8±30.4%) for each exercise (p<0.05). However, no significant main effect in “part” was found in SR of RF in any exercise. A significant main effect was found in “part” in muscle thickness of RF in the IM exercise. Also, muscle thickness in the distal part (104.5±7.7%) was significantly higher than that in the proximal part (102.5±4.3%) for each exercise (p<0.05). These results suggest that changes of muscle hardness and thickness in the proximal, middle, and distal parts of the human rectus femoris and vastus intermedius muscle after maximal knee extension exercises are different.