Chiemi Kawanishi

Estimating emotion changes using electroencephalographic activities and its clinical application

In the care, the communication based empathetic understanding is important. We have examined how to grasp empathetic understanding. We presume that the measurement of electroencephalographic (EEG) changes, those activities that are considered physiological indicators, enables an objective understanding of changes in emotions of those who have difficulty in expressing these through facial expression or physical action. Generally, EEG is used in the hospital to examine encephalopathy and brain disorder. Using an electroencephalograph device to acquire digital data we propose a method to objectively capture changes in the recognition state of people from changes in EEG activities (action potential), and a way to apply it into a clinical situation.

PSYCHOMS®, An electronic nursing management system to facilitate interdisciplinary communication and improve patient outcomes in psychiatric hospitals

The purpose of this article is to introduce PSYCHOMS® (Psychiatric Outcome Management System, registered trademark, Tanioka et al.), an electronic nursing management system to facilitate interdisciplinary communication and improve patient outcomes in psychiatric hospitals and report on the agenda for commercialization of the PSYCHOMS® system. Our team has been developing the PSYCHOMS® system since 2006. This system has four major components: (1) Clinical pathway and variance analysis system, (2) Nursing manager and staffs daily recording system, (3) nursing care planning system, and (4) nursing management support system. Any interdisciplinary team member using this system can access the patients information. Therefore, each interdisciplinary team members expertise can be maximally utilized to achieve improved patient outcomes. It was necessary to conduct a survey on what standard items were common in different hospitals to allow for the development of PSYCHOMS®s data base. In order to improve psychiatric care, it is necessary to develop a database that shares common language with all psychiatric hospitals. This manuscript reports on the functions and agenda for the PSYCHOMS® system.

The present conditions, problems and future direction of the server-controlled clinical pathway system development in psychiatric hospitals

Clinical pathways used today are paper-based, although many different kinds of clinical pathway are used in clinical practice. However, in the development of software for clinical pathway, it is difficult to achieve cooperation between medical experts, who are not used to expressing their ideas and work in words, and system-developers whose medical knowledge is limited. As a consequence, the current situation is that medical practitioners make their own software and use it in their practice. While this may work, it is less than ideal because refinements that may make the software most effective through engineering expertise is not used. Thus, in our research team, the nurse researchers and the engineering researchers cooperated and developed a clinical pathway system. In this paper, the present conditions, problems, and future direction of the server-controlled CP system development in the psychiatric hospitals, is discussed from viewpoint of nursing as a user.

Empathetic Understanding as Caring in Nursing Using Electroencephalographic Data as Evidence

Technological competency is an expression of caring in nursing. Nurses need to understand patients’ emotions and understand patients’ worlds as if these were their own. This is “empathic understanding.” Electroencephalograms (EEGs) were performed on five healthy participants while viewing an emotionally charged “sentimental” movie. EEG changes were collected and compared with data during a less emotionally charged situation. Apower map and spectrogram analyses of EEGs showed that alpha bands at the occipital region were specifically pronounced during the emotionally charged state. This study suggests that expressions of empathic understanding exists and are evidenced by EEG data, and that technological competency as caring in nursing is an expression of caring in nursing.

Clarification of Caring Behaviors by the Family of Elderly Relations Living in Rural Japan

Nursing technology is being continually developed to maintain and improve quality of life for the elderly who live in rapidly aging rural communities. However, it can be said that everyone performs acts of caring in some way or another. As such, informal caring exists in this context through the sense of trust in a mutual relationship andlor the harmonious feeling of self in relation to others. The purpose of this study is to describe the caring competency of those living in uals who have family members in need of nursing care. Interviews were used for data collection. For the purpose of this presentation we have used the case study of a lady suffering from dementia and the relationship with her daughter. The ladys daughter had been caring for her mothers behavioral disturbances (mania of garbage collecting, binge eating, and mysophilia). During the interview, the daughter told that throughout the caring relationship she rural areas. The research focuses on individhad asked herself what was the underlying meaning of her mothers problematic behavior. She also explained that she could tind meaning by sharing the experience of caring for her mother with others. The process of telling her stories enabled her to reconsider her personal experience in caring for her elderly mother and, by sharing this experience, she felt enabled to provide further care for her mother. The care provider appeared to look forward to talking to public health nurses who work in areas of behavioral disturbance and who understand the situation. In this paper we describe caring behavior for the elderly. Findings indicate that the family caregiver grows and develops through providing care and that being involved in the care process appears to facilitate diverse forms of self-realization.