As for the clinical condition to be called “cold stagnating in the liver vessel” (寒滞肝脈kantaikanmyaku),cold invades a liver-­meridian (肝経絡) and causes pain. We report a case of 7-­year-­old boy that reached the difficulty in walking for agreed pain of lower extremities in a liver-­meridian by cold house environment after the diarrhea. There was no abnormality in a blood test and the MR imaging in Western medicine. The treat­ment principle was to warm the meridian and reduce the pain. We chose the infusion of “dankanzen­-based prescription” (暖肝煎加味方) to warm the meridian and to remove the pain. The symptom improved. And the bathing therapy to warm a body relieved pain too. The case report of children of kantaikanmyaku was not found as far as we examined it. However, we believe that such cases are latent in Japan where air conditioners are widely used.

OBJECTIVEThe aim of this study is to determine whether a questionnaire-based method using the Veterans Specific Activity Questionnaire (VSAQ) is a practical tool for the development of a safe exercise program to prevent a reduction in physical performance.

METHODSOne hundred and twenty-one senior residents of Yakage, Okayama, agreed to voluntarily participate in this study. They were asked to complete a questionnaire for information on age, sex, subjective health status, exercise habits and VSAQ. We investigated the relationship between age and exercise capacity predicted by VSAQ (predicted metabolic equivalents (METs)). In addition, for 36 out of the 121 participants, we performed a 6-min walk distance test (6MD) and investigated whether its results correlate with the predicted METs. Furthermore, we prepared a modified VSAQ and examined its practicality in the evaluation of the exercise capacity of Japanese elderly (n=50).

RESULTSWe found that the predicted METs correlate well with age. Habitual exercise and subjective health status did not affect the predicted METs. A significant correlation was observed between the predicted METs and the results of 6MD (r=0.56, p<0.001). We also found that certain activities included in the original VSAQ are unfamiliar to Japanese elderly; thus, we made a few modifications to the original VSAQ in order to evaluate the physical fitness of Japanese elderly. The number of inadequate answers was reduced by employing the modified VSAQ.

CONCLUSIONThese findings imply that the modified VSAQ is useful in evaluating the exercise capacity of Japanese elderly adequately and is a practical scale for safe exercise.