Effectiveness of social behaviors for autonomous wheelchair robot to support elderly people in Japan.

We developed a wheelchair robot to support the movement of elderly people and specifically implemented two functions to enhance their intention to use it: speaking behavior to convey place/location related information and speed adjustment based on individual preferences. Our study examines how the evaluations of our wheelchair robot differ when compared with human caregivers and a conventional autonomous wheelchair without the two proposed functions in a moving support context. 28 senior citizens participated in the experiment to evaluate three different conditions.

[A case of hepatic actinomycosis diagnosed by thin needle aspiration biopsy successfully treated with antibiotics].

A 57-year-old man presented with chief complaints of right hypochondrial pain and fever. Laboratory tests revealed severe inflammatory reactions. Abdominal ultrasonography disclosed a mass with non-homogeneous internal echoes suggesting hepatic abscess.