Chinese Medicine Questionnaire (CCMQ-J) consists of sixty independent questionnaires and 9 physical constitutions called subscales. One type is balanced constitution (i.e., gentleness), and the following eight types represent unbalanced constitution: Qi-deficiency constitution, Yang-deficiency constitution, Yin-deficiency constitution, Phlegm-dampness constitution, Damp-heat constitution, Stagnant Blood constitution, Stagnant Qi constitution, and Inherited Special constitution. In this study, we proposed to determine optimal number of groups in 851 participants recruited from crowdsourcing answered CCMQ-J questionnaire consisting of 60 questions. In the present study, we applied k-means clustering with gap statistics to the questionnaire data and the number of optimal groups was estimated by five. The five groups are mainly characterized by 3 subscales in CCMQ-J, i.e. (i) two subscales corresponding to Yang-deficiency and Qi-depress, (ii) three subscales corresponding to gentleness, Yang-deficiency and Qi-depress (iii) Yang-deficiency, (iv) gentleness, and (v) Qi-depress. In the crowdsourcing survey, two subscales, Yang-deficient and Qi-depress are the most frequently occurred in current Japanese people.

In this study, we proposed an approach to interpret the classification of body constitution based on the Japanese Version of Constitution in Chinese Medicine Questionnaire (CCMQ-J) in terms of an augmented questionnaire combining seven independent questionnaires. The augmented questionnaire consists of 254 questions in terms of seven categories of attributes, which are the (i) basic information (BI), (ii) disease (DI), (iii) social factors (SO), (iv) mental factors (ME), (v) dietary habits (DH), (vi) sleeping state (SL), and (vii) sub-health (SH). The partial least square (PLS) regression has been adopted to model the correlations between the scores of body constitutions and the questions, and their results show that the body constitution can be represented by the linear combination of the questions substantially (correlation coefficients between the true and predicted constitutions are all above 0.7). Moreover, by using the crowdsourcing technique in data collection, a total of 851 samples (350 males and 501 females between 20 and 85 years old) samples with diverse geographical backgrounds in Japan have been collected, from which new medical implications have been extracted through the discussion in a Traditional Chinese Medicine standpoint. This study serves as a crucial step for validating the philosophy of ancient Chinese medicine by the state-of-the-art information science techniques and facilitating the use of the CCMQ-J in public healthcare.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the regular medications prescribed to elderly neurosurgical inpatients in community hospitals in Japan.Materials and Methods: Elderly patients (aged ≥ 65 years) who had been admitted to neurosurgery departments from April 2015 to March 2017 were enrolled in this study. We collected data on regular medications at the time of admission and discharge. Furthermore, we retrospectively analyzed factors associated with potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs). PIMs were defined as polypharmacy (≥ 6 medications used concurrently) or taking any of the unfavorable medications on the “list of drugs to be prescribed with special caution” in the “Guidelines for Medical Treatment and Its Safety in the Elderly 2015”.Results: We gathered data on over 1900 medications (mean number, 5.04) prescribed to 197 patients (mean age, 76.9 years). PIMs were observed in 51.3% of patients on admission. The most common prescriptions resulting in PIMs were benzodiazepine agents, followed by loop diuretics and H2 receptor antagonists. The multivariate analysis revealed that age (odds ratio, 1.08; p < 0.01) and the number of prescribers (odds ratio, 6.16; p < 0.01) were significantly related to PIMs on admission. PIM exposure at the time of discharge accounted for 39.1%, a 12.2% decrease.Conclusion: More than half of the elderly patients were prescribed PIMs on admission; however, this exposure decreased by 12.2% at the time of discharge. Hospitalization is an optimal opportunity for reconsidering the necessity of medications and for changing the prescriptions according to patients’ conditions.

Japanese version of the Constitution in Chinese Medicine Questionnaire (CCMQ-J) in Chinese consists of 60 items for 9 sub-scales called Gentleness, Qi-deficiency, Yang-deficiency, Yin-deficiency, Phlegm-wetness, Wet-heat, Blood-stasis, Qi-depression, and Special diathesis. Each question is answered by choosing one form 5 grades of a Likert scale where the grades from 1 to 5 corresponding to Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Often and Always, respectively. In the present study, we examined the relationship of scores based on 597 respondents to 60 items. We tentatively classified 60 items into 12 groups by utilizing the Ward’s hierarchical clustering method and discussed similarity of items and 9 body conditions. Body Mass Index (BMI) and age can be explained by the score of 60 items by partial least square model. Significantly high correlation coefficients between real and estimated values were obtained for BMI (0.81 for male and 0.82 for female) and age (0.82 for male and 0.83 for female). Those results indicate that the answers to the 60 items can reflect aging and BMI properties and CCMQ-J can be used to assess the situation of health for evaluating the actual aging conditions in human.

During the 18-month period from January 1, 1981 to June 30, 1082, we encountered a total of 11 cases of child peptic ulcer-three gastric ulcer and eight duodenal ulcer casen.
There is every indication that the incidence of child peptic ulcer will increase in a rural area like Yuri, which is situated in Japan's northeastern prefecture of Akita.
To be noted is the fact that 10 cases out of 11 of peptic ulcer were found in three-year lower secondary schoolchildren and the remaining one was found in a sixth grader of six-year elementary school. The incidence as well as the number of visits to our clinics went up as the age advances and reached a peak in third graders of lower secondary school.
The reason why third graders of lower secondary school were attacked most by peptic ulcer is probably that they, at puberty, are under psychic or psychogenic stress with anxiety over high school entrance examinations, mental strain from forced attendance at a cramming school, trouble in getting along with friends, and dissatisfaction with parents.
Therefore, child peptic ulcer should not be treated as a disease of the digestive organ alone but as a disorder in the autonomic nervous system with an aid of psychosomatic medicine and psychiatry. For the prevention of the disease, it would also be necessary to take account of socio-cultural factors.