An approach to psychosocial health among middle-aged and older people by remote sharing of photos and videos from family members not living together: A feasibility study.

Background: As an approach to the psychosocial health of people in later adulthood, information and communication technology (ICT) is attracting attention. However, because there is still a disparity issue in ICT use, particularly for older people, considering age-friendly digital interventions is important. We examined the feasibility of an intervention by an age-friendly digital service, remote sharing of photos/videos from families not living together, for psychosocial health in middle-aged and older people. Methods: This single-arm study recruited Japanese adults aged ≥ 50 years from web-pages of the social service, Mago-Channel (Chikaku Inc., Japan). Participants used this service for 3 months to receive photos/videos from the smartphones of their families not living together on a device set up on their home TVs and watched them there. Families not living together were encouraged to send photos/videos at least once a week, but no other restrictions on their lives, including their interactions, were imposed. After 3 months, the level of user satisfaction and changes in psychosocial health were assessed. Results: Finally, 115 participants were included, and 106 completed the intervention; the dropout rate from the intervention was low (7.8%), and satisfaction with the program was high, indicating high feasibility. While depressive symptoms and loneliness did not change markedly, satisfaction with the relationship of families living together increased significantly, and social interactions improved, including those with families not living together. Conclusions: High feasibility of this age-friendly digital intervention and its potential benefits on social relationships were shown, encouraging further trials with a confirmatory study design.

The Hanger Reflex: An Inexpensive and Non-invasive Therapeutic Modality for Dystonia and Neurological Disorders.

The hanger reflex is a phenomenon characterized by the involuntary rotation of the head when a wire hanger is worn around the head such that a force is applied to the frontal temporal area by the longer side of the hanger. The application of a shearing force on the skin is thought to be the cause of this phenomenon. Attempts have been made to treat cervical dystonia using equipment designed to induce the hanger reflex. This reflex may have implications in the treatment of headaches, cervical pain, and adhesive capsulitis. The hanger reflex is seen not only in the head region but is also in other parts of the body. Thus, it could be used in the treatment of systemic dystonias. The hanger reflex may help develop inexpensive and non-invasive treatment for dystonia or other neurological diseases and is expected to be the focus of research in the future.

Pilot Study of a Device to Induce the Hanger Reflex in Patients with Cervical Dystonia.

The hanger reflex (HR) is an involuntary head rotation that occurs in response to a clothes hanger encircling the head and compressing the unilateral fronto-temporal area. Here, we developed an elliptical device to induce the HR and examined its utility for the treatment of cervical dystonia (CD). The study included 19 patients with rotational-type CD. The device was applied to each subject's head for at least 30 min/day for 3 months. Severity scores on part 1 of the Toronto Western Spasmodic Torticollis Rating Scale were evaluated at baseline and after the 3-month trial. Mean scores without and with the device were significantly different both at baseline (16.6 vs. 14.7, respectively; P < 0.05) and after the trial (14.9 vs. 13.6, respectively; P < 0.05). This preliminary trial suggests that our device can improve abnormal head rotation in patients with CD.

Rate of Hanger Reflex Occurrence: Unexpected Head Rotation on Fronto-temporal Head Compression.

When the head is encircled with a wire clothes hanger and the unilateral fronto-temporal region is compressed, the head rotates unexpectedly. As the mechanism is unclear, however, we have temporarily named this phenomenon as the "hanger reflex." We previously reported a case wherein this phenomenon was applied to treat cervical dystonia. Because little is known about this phenomenon, we determined how often this phenomenon is observed in healthy subjects. Study participants were 120 healthy Japanese adults (60 men and 60 women) aged 19-65 years. A wire clothes hanger was applied to each subject's head. The longer side of the hanger was attached over the volunteer's fronto-temporal regions on both sides of the head in succession (i.e., two applications per volunteer). We evaluated whether the subjects felt the sensation of head rotation by using a questionnaire. The sensation of head rotation was observed in 95.8% of subjects. There were five non-responders (4.2%). In 85.4% of the trials, head rotation was observed in the direction that coincided with the side compressed by the hanger. There were no differences in responses between genders. The incident rate of the hanger reflex was remarkably high and most likely represents a prevalent phenomenon in humans. The mechanism underlying the reflex remains unknown. Further research should be performed to elucidate the underlying causes of the hanger reflex, which represents a potential treatment for cervical dystonia.

Fabrication of mouse embryonic stem cell-derived layered cardiac cell sheets using a bioreactor culture system.

Bioengineered functional cardiac tissue is expected to contribute to the repair of injured heart tissue. We previously developed cardiac cell sheets using mouse embryonic stem (mES) cell-derived cardiomyocytes, a system to generate an appropriate number of cardiomyocytes derived from ES cells and the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. In the present study, we established a cultivation system with suitable conditions for expansion and cardiac differentiation of mES cells by embryoid body formation using a three-dimensional bioreactor. Daily conventional medium exchanges failed to prevent lactate accumulation and pH decreases in the medium, which led to insufficient cell expansion and cardiac differentiation. Conversely, a continuous perfusion system maintained the lactate concentration and pH stability as well as increased the cell number by up to 300-fold of the seeding cell number and promoted cardiac differentiation after 10 days of differentiation. After a further 8 days of cultivation together with a purification step, around 1 × 10(8) cardiomyocytes were collected in a 1-L bioreactor culture, and additional treatment with noggin and granulocyte colony stimulating factor increased the number of cardiomyocytes to around 5.5 × 10(8). Co-culture of mES cell-derived cardiomyocytes with an appropriate number of primary cultured fibroblasts on temperature-responsive culture dishes enabled the formation of cardiac cell sheets and created layered-dense cardiac tissue. These findings suggest that this bioreactor system with appropriate medium might be capable of preparing cardiomyocytes for cell sheet-based cardiac tissue.