Purpose: The purpose of this research is to examine nursing practices in which nurses experienced a realization of spirituality and their thoughts at that time. Methods: A questionnaire was administered to nurses in four hospitals and one palliative care unit. Results: A total of 835 participants completed the questionnaire. Nearly 20% of nurses reported having spiritual experiences associated with their work, including realizations of the value of human life and patients' strength in facing death or living with illness. In addition, nurses achieved a sense of spirituality through transcendent occurrences related to life and death, such as premonitions. Nurses pondered providing care that transcends both mind and body after encountering difficulty in providing nursing care. Conclusion: Nurses' sensitivity to human life and death and transcendent occurrences may be a reflection of the unique features of Japanese spirituality. In order to enhance Japanese nurses' perceptions of spirituality, it is necessary to offer nursing education in spirituality related to each nurse's own experiences. Palliat Care Res 2011; 6(1): 216-221

Background and Purpose: Every patient experiences a nervous period of waiting before a surgical operation. We make a point of visiting patients for friendly chats with them before the day of Jurgery to reduce their anxieties. This study was conducted to evaluate the results of the preoperative visits to mentally support the patients and rapidly obtain their confidences by a method of “transactional analysis.”
Methods: Fourteen nurses of the operating section in our hospital visited 120 patients prior to surgical operations requiring general anesthesia between March and May in 1994, and recorded the communications for “transactional analysis.”
Results: The communications were completely documented in 21 out of 120 patients. The preoperative visit and communications reduced the anxieties in 18 out of the 21 patients (86%).
Conclusions: The preoperative visit and cummunications were useful for establishing confidences between nurses and approximately 90 percentage of the patients.

　　The impact of health guidance is recently becoming higher quality health services, and the next task is finding ways to establish a system that delivers higher quality services. Institutions that provide health guidance need to improve their services by analyzing the lifestyle habits and health examination results (e.g., BMI and blood pressure) of their clients. This study conducted simultaneous health and dietary habit checkups so that key elements for guidance (e.g., individual dietary habits, population characteristics, and main tasks) could be shared among guidance providers and be utilized for follow-up guidance. Most subjects were in their sixties or seventies, many of whom were diagnosed with obesity and/or dyslipidemia based on health examination results. Dietary habit evaluations revealed high intake of a main dish among both men and women. Intake of a main dish and a sweet snack was particularly high among men. Many subjects who excessively take in both a main dish and sweet snack were obese with a high percentage of saturated fatty acid-derived energy, indicating that this subgroup needs to be prioritized to receive guidance. Those with an appropriate intake of both a main dish and sweet snack might have consumed inadvisable levels of other dietary components, including luxury food items. However, an individual approach is also required to address the risk associated with intake of a low percentage of protein-derived energy. Similar studies in other populations and other communities are needed to assess whether the characteristics revealed in this study are specific to this particular population.

　　Muscle training is effective for improving motor function, although withdrawal within 3-6 months has been reported in many cases. Thus, we aimed to establish locomotion training recommended by the Japanese Orthopaedic Association and our own locomotive syndrome prevention training (herein after collectively referred to as “locomotive training”) as a daily routine. Subjects were 30 participants of a training course held in 2014. Nine sessions (including 1 follow-up session) were organized to repetitively teach the importance of locomotive training; participants were instructed to record daily training activities during the course. Duration of oneleg standing balance with eyes open was measured each session so that participants were aware of the effects of the training. At the time of the last session of the course and at the follow-up session, 90% and 83% of participants completed home training twice or three times a week, respectively. Participants reported physical changes such as amelioration of knee pain and ability to put on a Wellington boot while standing on one leg. Also, physical fitness tests performed before and after the course showed significant improvement on the Timed Up and Go test, 30-s chair stand test, and one-leg standing with eyes open after the training course. Furthermore, the locomotive syndrome test resulted in a decrease in the number of participants who were judged to have a possibility to suffer from locomotive syndrome. Taken together, introducing a cycle comprising the three components of motivation-building through lectures, increasing awareness by recording performance, and awareness of the training effect by measuring duration of one-leg standing balance contributed to training continuity and consequent improvement in motor function.

To improve the quality of palliative care in the Kyoto region, we thought that closely connecting hospice and palliative care units (PCU) is necessary. Subsequently, we established the Kyoto PCU Liaison Committee in September 2017. This committee was created as a place to casually discuss the problems that individual PCU facilities have, deliberate on their worries together, grow and develop, and support newly launched facilities. Furthermore, discussions were held on current topics (emergency hospitalization, blood transfusion, smoking, bereaved family meetings, etc.) at the liaison meetings. While meetings were adjourned in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we continued to exchange opinions on infection control, PCU management, etc., using the email network at first. Later, these meetings resumed via web conference systems. Thus, by having face-to-face relationships on a daily basis, we were able to maintain cooperation between PCUs even during the pandemic, and collaborate with cancer treatment hospitals. Overall, by forming a team of PCUs in Kyoto Prefecture, we aim to enable patients and their families to live with peace of mind wherever they are.