Masahiro Ohashi

EFFECTIVENESS OF A COMPREHENSIVE DAY TREATMENT PROGRAM FOR REHABILITATION OF PATIENTS WITH ACQUIRED BRAIN INJURY IN JAPAN

OBJECTIVE To assess the effectiveness of a day treatment program with a comprehensive team approach for treating outpatients with acquired brain injury, which is offered by the Kanagawa Rehabilitation Hospital. DESIGN Non-randomized controlled study. SUBJECTS Twenty-five program graduates and 12 control patients with acquired brain injury. METHODS A prospective study using 25 brain-injured patients with cognitive dysfunction who were provided with a comprehensive day treatment program at Kanagawa Rehabilitation Hospital. The 25 enrolled patients had treatment sessions lasting 2-4 hours for 2 days a week over a 3-6-month period. Functional Independence Measure/Functional Assessment Measure (FIM/FAM) and the Community Integration Questionnaire (CIQ) were administered before and after the program to compare outcomes between the 25 program participants and the 12 control patients who did not receive the day treatment program. RESULTS Significant improvements in speech intelligibility, problem solving, memory, attention and social integration scores in the FIM/FAM and scores in social integration and productive activity in the CIQ were evident in the enrolled subjects. In addition, 9 of the 25 patients returned to work or school. CONCLUSION These results demonstrate the effectiveness of this program in helping to rehabilitate patients with acquired brain injury.

Examination by Near-Infrared Spectroscopy for Evaluation of Piano Performance as a Frontal Lobe Activation Task

The purpose of this study was to reveal the activation of the frontal lobe in piano performance by the use of near-infrared spectroscopy. Participants wereseven healthy volunteer music college students. The results of the examination showed a tendency towards an increase in total hemoglobin volume over a wider area in the frontal part of the brain during an appropriate piano task compared with an easy piano task or the Keio version of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. The results suggest that piano performance is recognized as a frontal lobe-activating task and that performance of an appropriate piano task can be expected to elicit wider activation of the frontal lobe than an easy one.