Case: A 40-year-old woman. Clinical diagnosis: Autistic disorder with mild mental retardation. Case report: The patient underwent pancreaticoduodenectomy for the treatment of her pancreatic cancer. We held several conferences with individuals from different medical fields and examined the influence of the patient's autistic disorder on the perioperative conditions. The senior author, a clinical psychologist, conducted repeated individual, acceptive, and sympathetic interviews with the patient and her family and maintained supportive relationships with them as an honorary family member. Thus, the clinical psychologist helped reduce the patient's anxiety about the medical treatment. Conclusion: The participation of a clinical psychologist in the medical conferences enabled the medical staff to understand the complications involved and provide mental support to the patient and her family. Palliat Care Res 2010; 5(2): 323-326

Objectives : In Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV), full scale intelligence quotient (FSIQ) and the index scores are thought to be solely important and supplemental subtests are not taken into account in the score.However, in assessment by intelligent tests it is required that we analyze the result from many directions. Accordingly, the factor of “Cancellation” was taken up and the importance of adding a focus on the qualitative side of the test results was examined. Methods : Some 412 children who received WISC-IV in our developmental evaluation center were divided into three groups according to their intellectual level, and of these, 30 persons were assigned to each group [total of 90] selected at random to comprise the sample. By comparing the index scores and the scaled scores for each group,we have classified the procedures of deletion into six types. Results : The more the intellectual level increases, the lower the “Cancellation” scaled score becomes compared to the other subtests. Further, the scaled score was lower in the type of deletion procedure such as systematic linear strategy. Conclusion : In the high intellect level group, the scaled “Cancellation” score was lower than the other subtests, it was thought to be because there were many “order type” subjects using a systematic linear strategy. It was also considered that attention to the qualitative aspects as well as quantitative is important in “Cancellation”. Therefore, when assessing high intellect children with developmental disabilities in the future, a clinical examination that incorporates “Cancellation” to detect executive function disabilities such as persistence or poor planning ability is desirable.

We performed a prospective study to determine whether the walking pattern of children with flatfoot can be influenced by using shoes and custom-modeled insoles. One hundred and thirty-two children (mean age ; 4.20±2.53) who had been referred by a physiatrist, and who were diagnosed with flatfoot at the brace clinic in our institute, were assigned to three groups : The first group was asked to walk barefoot, the second one to walk with shoes without insoles and the last one to walk with shoes with insoles. We measured walking speed, cadence, step length, step width, the duration of right and left stance phases, both double-limb stance phases, both swing phases, walking angle, and toe angle using a 2.4 m sheet-type Gait Analyzer, the Walk Way MW-1000 ^TM, at the individual's self-selected speed. Compared with the barefoot group, a significant increase was observed in the group using shoes with custom-modeled insoles in both walking speed and step length on both sides, and there were reductions in swing phase and walking angle on both sides (paired t-test ; p<0.002).