This study aimed to elucidate nurses' interpretation of the feelings toward outings among patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis on home mechanical ventilation (ALS/HMV patients), as well as the support provided by nurses enabling these patients to go out. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 5 nurses who had helped ALS/HMV patients make their first outing since starting HMV, and results were analyzed inductively. As interpreted by the nurses, there were 9 categories of feelings toward outings among ALS/HMV patients who had no prior experience of outings, such as “desire to go out”, “concerns about postural maintenance and physical pain”, and “concerns about mechanical troubles”. There were 7 categories of support provided by nurses to enable ALS/HMV patients to go out, such as “predicting and preparing for danger”, “persuading ALS/HMV patients to include outings in their lives”, and “finding the best timing for outings”. These results indicate that nurses grasped ALS/HMV patients' positive and negative feelings toward outings, and supported them to expand their lives by ensuring their safety, motivating them, alleviating their concerns, and enhancing their independence.

To investigate the factors affecting the rate of improvement in endurance exercise performance following pre-cooling with ice slurry, we focused on individual physical characteristics and thermoregulatory capacity. Twenty-four healthy adults (12 males and 12 females) ingested 7.5g kg-1 of either ice slurry at -1°C (ICE) or control water at 20°C (CON) before cycling at 55% VO2max and continued cycling until the rectal temperature reached 38.5°C or untill exhaustion in a hot environment (controlled at 38°C, 40% relative humidity). The relationship between the rate of improvement in exercise performance and physical characteristics and thermoregulatory factors (changes in rectal temperature, the rate of rectal temperature increase, whole body sweat loss, mean metabolic heat production, and heat storage) was investigated. No correlation was noted between the rate of improvement in exercise performance and physical characteristics and heat storage. On the other hand, the rate of improvement in exercise performance showed significant correlations with changes in rectal temperature (r = -0.497), the rate of rectal temperature increases during exercise (r = -0.784), whole body sweat loss (r = 0.407), and mean metabolic heat production (r = -0.436). The rate of inhibition of sweating and the rate of increase in metabolic heat production by ice slurry ingestion during exercise have been suggested to be related to the rate of improvement in exercise performance. On the other hand, there was no relationship between body composition or VO2max and the rate of improvement in exercise performance.