[The factors influencing motivation to start exercise among elderly people in an urban area].

Aim: The purpose of the present study was to identify the influence of information resources and interpersonal networks on motivation to start exercise among elderly people living in an urban area.

Methods: The subjects were 235 elderly people living in an urban area who previously had no exercise habits. We examined their motivation to start exercise as potentially influenced by frequency of interpersonal communication, presence of friends and other persons who invite them to participate in health-promoting activities, having someone to invite to such activities, and the use of information resources.

Brief screening tool for mild cognitive impairment in older Japanese: validation of the Japanese version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment.

Aim: The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), developed by Dr Nasreddine (Nasreddine et al. 2005), is a brief cognitive screening tool for detecting older people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). We examined the reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the MoCA (MoCA-J) in older Japanese subjects.

[The assessment of the reliability and the validity of the EOQOL questionnaire of osteoporotics--QOL assessment of elderly osteoporotics by EOQOL].

We presented a novel and specific questionnaire for quality of life of elderly subjects with osteoporosis (EOQOL), and analyzed its reliability and validity. Based on the discussions with elderly people of osteoporosis, we extracted key words related to complaints of patients with vertebral fractures. A 49 questionnaire was developed on concepts derived from key words.

Recognition of facial expressions and emotional situations in patients with dementia of the Alzheimer and vascular types.

The aim of this study was to investigate the ability of patients with dementia to recognize facial expressions and emotional situations. We evaluated 16 patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) and 15 with vascular dementia (VD) for general cognition, discrimination of facial expressions and individual faces, and recognition of facial expressions and emotional situations. VD patients performed significantly worse than DAT patients at recognizing facial emotions, even though there was no difference between them in their general cognition and visuoperceptual abilities.