Background and Objective  The Projects of Global Growth of Medical Technologies, implemented by NCGM since 2015, have contributed to human resource development through on-site training in partner countries and training in Japan. However, since 2020, online training has become mainstream due to the travel restrictions by COVID-19 impact. As one of the projects, the NCGM and Bach Mai Hospital rehabilitation departments in Vietnam held an interactive online hands-on seminar in FY2022 for Vietnamese occupational therapists and others to provide technical guidance for making splint orthoses to rehabilitate patients with hand dysfunction. This paper aims to report on the preparation and implementation process of the seminar and its results.Preparation and Implementation of the Seminar  NCGM (the instructor) and Bach Mai Hospital (the site of the hands-on training) prepared the seminar through regular online meetings, fostering ownership and collaborative planning on the Vietnamese side, and discussed the program development, necessary materials, participant selection, and obtaining authorization from the Vietnamese Ministry of Health. To ensure the quality of the technical instruction, the seminar was connected via Zoom to both NCGM and Bach Mai Hospital, where the live video of the splinting technique was conducted, along with explanations and Q&A sessions. The post-training evaluation was carried out through a questionnaire with self-assessment of the participants about the knowledge and skills they obtained. Outcome and Discussion  As a result, 96% (27/28) of the participants answered that the seminar was “useful for clinical practice,” suggesting that the interactive online hands-on seminar regarding technical instruction in making splint orthosis was as good as or better than the face-to-face training. We found that the Vietnamese side took ownership from the preparatory stage by establishing a regular online meeting system; the quality of the training was assured by live video by both sides, which enabled detailed technical instruction; the training provider’s skills were improved by more detailed preparation; training was cost-effective compared to on-site training or training in Japan; and the materials used and the training videos can be used as teaching materials, which is expected local benefits and sustainability. These findings can be applied to face-to-face training to make the training more effective and extended as a useful method when similar activities are developed in other countries.

Objective：The aim of this study is to obtain information for setting a common shear rate for the viscosimetry of thickened liquids.Materials & Methods：The panelists (healthcare professionals involved in dysphagia) drank five maltose syrups, and organized them in the order of viscosity based on their pharyngeal sense. Then, they drank three thickened liquids, i.e., 1.4% and 0.95% xanthan gum (XAN) solutions, and 1.4% guar gum (GUA) solution, and aligned them with the maltose syrups. We carried out the test twice using different concentrations of maltose syrups and obtained 126 answers. Results：Of all panelists, 77% could correctly arrange the five maltose syrups in the order of viscosity. The answers of the panelists who could serialize the five maltose syrups and the two XAN solutions were as follows. There were few answers that corresponded to shear rate of less than 11 sec^-1 for each of the thickened liquids. Meanwhile, most frequently answers corresponded to the shear rates of 61-140 sec^-1, 80-240 sec^-1, 210-620 sec^-1 for 1.4% XAN, 0.95% XAN, and 1.4 GUA solutions, respectively. Conclusion：The common shear rate for the viscosimetry of thickened liquids was not equivalent to the shear rate of 3 sec^-1 historically adopted in Japan；it was at least 50 sec^-1 according to the results of the sensory evaluation.