Awareness of and attitude of elderly subjects regarding health care and welfare in rapidly ageing population in Japan

OBJECTIVES

We aimed to obtain information on the degree of knowledge and understanding about the current systems of health care and welfare held by the elderly, in order to achieve comprehensiveness in family practice.

METHOD

We conducted a study on the awareness of healthy elderly persons by direct interview. The study was carried out in Kuni Village in a remote mountainous region in Japan, where the elderly population accounts for 24.8% of the total population. The subjects were self-dependent in their daily living activities and were aged 65 years and older.

RESULTS

The subjects' knowledge of health care and welfare systems was generally good, and the degree of their utilization of these systems was also good. But 83.3% of those who did not want to utilize the welfare system indicated their preference to depend on their family for support.

CONCLUSION

Family physicians must endeavour to offer comprehensive care to their patients by including these systems for rapidly ageing communities.

Trial of rural practice evaluation: mutual rotation by family physicians

OBJECTIVES

We aimed to investigate the usefulness of mutual rotation by family physicians in providing an evaluation of rural medical practices.

METHODS

Between June and October 1994, each of four family physicians rotated to the practices of the other three, where they worked as a transient locum for 4-5 days and evaluated each practice. They were field faculty physicians of the Department of Community and Family Medicine, Jichi Medical School, and based at general practices accredited for undergraduate and postgraduate training. Two school-based faculty physicians also participated in the study as spare members.

RESULTS

The rotation was conducted four times to complete the mutual rotation programme. There was some difference in evaluation among the practices, which indicated the characteristics of the practices. The evaluation accorded relatively well among the participants.

CONCLUSIONS

Mutual rotation by family physicians provides an objective and practicable evaluation of general practices and contribute to upholding their quality, which is crucial to medical education.

Active immunization of human cancer with tumor cell-associated carbohydrate antigen

The peanut agglutinin (PNA) receptors isolated from a tumor cell line could elicit antitumor activity by an active immunization. We report here the results of active immunization with a human PNA receptor glycoprotein on the tumor progression of cancer patients. A remarkable regression of cancer and a prolonged life span in patients were obtained after active immunization with a tumor cell-associated carbohydrate antigen.