Spinal muscular atrophy is a neuromuscular disease characterized by muscle atrophy and progressive muscle weakness due to the degeneration of motor neurons in the anterior horn of the spinal cord. We report a case of an adult patient with spinal muscular atrophy type II and difficulty holding a sitting position. The patient was evaluated before and after Nusinersen treatment and thereafter periodically for up to 3 months for motor and daily living functions. At 3 months post-treatment, the Expanded version of the Hammersmith Functional Motor Scale and the Revised Upper Limb Module, which are motor function assessment tools for evaluating spinal muscular atrophy, showed an increase of 2 points. Evaluation of daily functioning using the Canadian occupational performance measure demonstrated improvements in eating and computer finger manipulation, and these improvements were considered important in daily lives by the patient. This report shows that the Nusinersen treatment improved motor and daily life functions in a patient with spinal muscular atrophy and low motor function. The report also concludes that rehabilitation evaluation for spinal muscular atrophy should include a disease-specific assessment of motor function, combined with an assessment focusing on physical symptoms and daily life functions to capture clinical changes that are responsive to individual patients with spinal muscular atrophy.

Spinal muscular atrophy is a neuromuscular disease characterized by muscle atrophy and progressive muscle weakness due to the degeneration of motor neurons in the anterior horn of the spinal cord. We report a case of an adult patient with spinal muscular atrophy type II and difficulty holding a sitting position. The patient was evaluated before and after Nusinersen treatment and thereafter periodically for up to 3 months for motor and daily living functions. At 3 months post-treatment, the Expanded version of the Hammersmith Functional Motor Scale and the Revised Upper Limb Module, which are motor function assessment tools for evaluating spinal muscular atrophy, showed an increase of 2 points. Evaluation of daily functioning using the Canadian occupational performance measure demonstrated improvements in eating and computer finger manipulation, and these improvements were considered important in daily lives by the patient. This report shows that the Nusinersen treatment improved motor and daily life functions in a patient with spinal muscular atrophy and low motor function. The report also concludes that rehabilitation evaluation for spinal muscular atrophy should include a disease-specific assessment of motor function, combined with an assessment focusing on physical symptoms and daily life functions to capture clinical changes that are responsive to individual patients with spinal muscular atrophy.

Objective: Pulmonary mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) disease is increasing significantly worldwide. Several studies have investigated the clinical features of pulmonary MAC disease in the setting of cancer. Here, we aimed to clarify the clinical characteristics of patients with cancer with recent onset of pulmonary MAC disease and the effect of cancer on the onset of this disease.Patients and Methods: Of the 323 consecutive Japanese patients newly diagnosed with pulmonary MAC disease at Jichi Medical University Hospital between and 2006–2017, we retrospectively reviewed 79 consecutive patients with cancer.Results: Seventeen patients had lung cancer (21.0%), while 62 had non-lung cancer. Of the 17 patients with lung cancer, 16 had adenocarcinoma of which 10 had stage I to III disease; 8 of the 10 patients had not received chemotherapy. Sixteen patients with lung cancer had a MAC infection in the ipsilateral lung. Notably, 9 of the 11 lung cancer patients who did not undergo surgery had a MAC infection in the affected lobe. Of the 39 patients with the most common types of non-lung cancer (14 had gastric cancer, 13 had colorectal cancer, and 12 had breast cancer), 22 had stage I to III disease, and 18 of these 22 had not received chemotherapy.Conclusion: Lung cancer may act as a local factor contributing to the onset of pulmonary MAC disease in the ipsilateral lung. However, the underlying mechanism by which a history of cancer might affect the onset of pulmonary MAC disease remains unclear. Further investigation into this mechanism is needed.

OBJECTIVES: Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems are increasingly used as an effective method to share patients' records among different hospitals. However, it is still a challenge to access scattered patient data through multiple EHRs. Our goal is to build a system to access patient records easily among EHRs without relying on a centralized supervisory system. METHODS: We apply consortium blockchain to compose a distributed system using Hyperledger Fabric incorporating existent EHRs. Peer nodes hold the same ledger on which the address of a patient record in an EHR is written. Individual patients are identified by unique certificates issued by a local certificate authorities that collaborate with each other in a channel of the network. To protect a patient's privacy, we use a proxy re-encryption scheme when the data are transferred. We designed and implemented various chaincodes to handle business logic agreed by member organizations of the network. RESULTS: We developed a prototype system to implement our concept and tested its performance including chaincode logic. The results demonstrated that our system can be used by doctors to find patient's records and verify patient's consent on access to the data. Patients also can seamlessly receive their past records from other hospitals. The access log is stored transparently and immutably in the ledger that is used for auditing purpose. CONCLUSIONS Our system is feasible and flexible with scalability and availability in adapting to existing EHRs for strengthening security and privacy in managing patient records. Our research is expected to provide an effective method to integrate dispersed patient records among medical institutions.

Objectives: Currently, patients’ consent is essential to use their medical records for various purposes; however, most people give their consent using paper forms and have no control over it. Healthcare organizations also have difficulties in dealing with patient consent. The objective of this research is to develop a system for patients to manage their consent flexibly and for healthcare organizations to obtain patient consent efficiently for a variety of purposes. Methods: We introduce a new e-consent model, which uses a purpose-based access control scheme; it is implemented by a blockchain system using Hyperledger Fabric. All metadata of patient records, consents, and data access are written immutably on the blockchain and shared among participant organizations. We also created a blockchain chaincode that performs business logic managing patient consent. Results: We developed a prototype and checked business logics with the chaincode by validating doctors’ data access with purpose-based consent of patients stored in the blockchain. The results demonstrate that our system provides a fine-grained way of handling medical staff ’s access requests with diverse intended purposes for accessing data. In addition, patients can create, update, and withdraw their consents in the blockchain. Conclusions Our consent model is a solution for consent management both for patients and healthcare organizations. Our system, as a blockchain-based solution that provides high reliability and availability with transparency and traceability, is expected to be used not only for patient data sharing in hospitals, but also for data donation for biobank research purposes.

BACKGROUND: The gender-specific characteristics of individuals at an increased risk of developing depression currently remain unclear despite a higher prevalence of depression in women than in men. This study clarified socioeconomic and lifestyle factors associated with an increased risk of subclinical depression in general Japanese men and women. METHODS: Study participants were residents not receiving psychiatric treatments in 300 sites throughout Japan in 2010 (1152 men, 1529 women). Multivariable-adjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CIs) for socioeconomic factors and lifestyle factors were calculated using a logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: Risk of depressive tendencies was significantly higher in men who were single and living alone (OR, 3.27; 95% CI, 1.56-6.88) than those married. The risk was significantly lower in women who were not working and aged ≥ 60 years (OR, 0.39; 95% CI, 0.22-0.68) and higher in men who were not working and aged < 60 years (OR, 3.57; 95%CI, 1.31-9.72) compared with those who were working. Current smoking was also associated with a significantly increased risk of depressive tendencies in women (OR, 2.96; 95% CI, 1.68-5.22) but not in men. CONCLUSIONS Socioeconomic and lifestyle factors were associated with an increased risk of depressive tendencies in general Japanese. Related factors were different by sex.
Adult ; Aged ; Community Psychiatry ; statistics & numerical data ; trends ; Depression ; epidemiology ; Female ; Health Surveys ; Humans ; Japan ; epidemiology ; Life Style ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Odds Ratio ; Prevalence ; Risk Factors ; Socioeconomic Factors

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of crocetin on the pupillary response during accommodation induced by visual display terminal (VDT) work. This clinical study was conducted as a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover trial in healthy adult volunteers with subjective symptoms of eye fatigue. In this study, the pupillary response during accommodation was evaluated using pupil constriction ratio (PCR). PCR was measured before and after VDT work, after rest at baseline, and at each intervention period. Following analysis of variations in PCR, the variation in PCR after rest significantly increased in the crocetin group. According to the visual analog scale questionnaire, subjective symptoms of eye fatigue significantly improved. These results show that ingestion of crocetin for 4 weeks is effective in mitigating the pupillary response during accommodation associated with VDT work.

Objective: Pharmacists need to know at what positioning a drug is recommended in clinical practice guidelines when they make prescription proposals.  However, the format of guidelines and the definition of recommendation grades differ between academic societies, making it difficult to comprehensively extract only the information one needs.  Therefore, we developed a guideline utilization system to support prescription proposals by pharmacists.
Methods: We built a database comprised of clinical practice guidelines on pharmacological therapy for breast cancer and breast cancer-related conditions.  FileMaker®was used in the development of the system.
Result: This system allows the comprehensive extraction of clinical questions and recommendations from multiple guidelines by means of standardized keywords.
Conclusion: This system supports prescription proposals by pharmacists when generating pharmacological therapy protocols or when in discussions with healthcare professionals as information on the positioning of therapeutic agents in different guidelines and recommended drugs is readily available.

The aim of this study was to understand the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in cancer patients in Japan. This study was part of the Japan Hospice and Palliative care Evaluation 2016 (J-HOPE2016) Study. A multicenter questionnaire survey was conducted on a sample of bereaved family members of cancer patients who died at palliative care units. Data suggest that 54% of cancer patients use CAM. In comparison with a previous study in 2005 in Japan, categories of CAM vary widely; CAM previously included supplements mostly, but now exercise and mind and body therapy are also used. Most cancer patients use CAM without any harmful influence on their household economy and cancer treatment; however, in some patients, CAM incurs a large expense and a delay in starting cancer treatment. Therefore, it is important for medical staff and patients to have an opportunity to discuss CAM use. Multiple logistic regression analysis shows that CAM use is significantly associated with younger patients and highly educated families; moreover, there is a possibility that family members who use CAM have a high level of psychological distress. We must pay attention to the physical and the psychological aspects of cancer patients who use CAM and their families. Further studies are needed to investigate the use of each category of CAM, and to understand patients who use CAM and who die at home or in hospitals other than palliative care units.