Hideo Ambo

Posttraumatic stress disorder in mothers of children who have undergone surgery for congenital disease at a pediatric surgery department

PURPOSE The aim of the study was to investigate posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in mothers of children who have undergone surgery for congenital disease at a pediatric surgery department. METHODS A questionnaire survey was carried out in 145 mothers of children who had undergone surgery and were still alive. For comparison, the mothers were categorized into 3 groups according to the severity of their childs disease. RESULTS Of the 145 mothers, 29 (20%) were likely to be diagnosed as having developed PTSD at the time of the survey. Posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms correlated with factors such as anxiety and condition of the child. In terms of the disease severity of the child, factors such as anxiety tended to be observed more frequently in the higher disease severity group, whereas the proportion of mothers likely to be diagnosed as having developed PTSD was smallest in the moderate-severity group. CONCLUSIONS Twenty percent of the mothers of children had probably developed PTSD. In the moderate-severity group, there seemed to be a factor that alleviated PTSD symptoms. Because mothers provided effective care for the symptoms of children in the moderate-severity group, this observation suggests that participation of the mother in their childs treatment might prevent them from developing PTSD symptoms.

Language deterioration in four Japanese–Portuguese bilingual patients with Alzheimer's disease: a trans‐cultural study of Japanese elderly immigrants in Brazil

Background:  Bilingualism is an area of linguistics that has been investigated in aphasic patients. However, bilingualism and Alzheimers disease (AD) have not been fully investigated despite the fact that language impairment is a frequent symptom of AD. Brazil has the greatest number of Japanese immigrants and, consequently, there are many bilingual people who are fluent in both Japanese and Portuguese in Brazil.

An Environmental Change Does Not Affect Dementia Prevalence but Affects Depressive State and Physical Activity: A Trans‐Cultural Study of Japanese Elderly Subjects and Japanese Elderly Immigrants in Brazil

Background:Dementia, depressive state, and physical inactivity, are some of the main topics of geriatric medicine. We previously showed the prevalence of dementia in Tajiri, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. To investigate the environmental effects, first‐generation immigrants are one of the best samples. Brazil is the country with the largest number of Japanese immigrants.