Nihon Fukushi University (日本福祉大学, Nihon fukushi daigaku) is a private university with its main campus at Mihama, Aichi, and other campuses at Nagoya and Handa, also in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. The school was founded as a junior college in 1953 and became a four-year college in 1957..
Abstract Background The Dementia Supporter Initiative is a national public education program in Japan that aims to foster positive attitudes and appropriate understanding of dementia to support people with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia in the community. However, its influence on the community as a whole remains unclear. Objective This study examined the relationship between dementia supporter training and residents’ attitudes and recognition related to dementia at the municipal level. Methods This ecological cross-sectional study linked municipal-level data from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study 2022 wave with publicly available information on the number of dementia supporters. Residents’ beliefs and attitudes toward dementia and recognition of dementia consultation services were assessed by mail questionnaires and aggregated at municipal level. The proportion of dementia supporters in each municipality was calculated as of September 2022. Results Data from 69 municipalities were analyzed. The mean proportion of dementia supporters was 13.47% (2.62–44.85). A higher proportion of dementia supporters was positively correlated with community support-seeking for a family member with dementia ( r = 0.328) and recognition of dementia consultation services ( r = 0.501). Regression analysis adjusted for municipal covariates also showed their positive associations (per 10-percentage-point increase: coef. = 1.44, p = 0.047; coef. = 3.12, p < 0.001, respectively). No associations were observed with residents’ positive attitudes and appropriate understandings of dementia. Conclusions Wider dissemination of dementia supporters may contribute to better recognition of community support resources, but may be insufficient to influence broader public attitudes and understanding of dementia at the community level.
Introduction:Action Over Inertia (AOI) is a recovery-oriented intervention designed to promote occupational engagement and support personal recovery through changes in everyday activity patterns. While AOI has been examined in Western contexts, its applicability and clinical adaptation in East Asian settings remain underexplored. This study used a mixed-methods approach to examine the feasibility and cultural adaptation of a group-based AOI program in Japan. Methods:A mixed-methods pilot feasibility design was used. The quantitative component was a single-arm repeated-measures pilot study conducted across four psychiatric daycare facilities in Japan. Outcomes were assessed at baseline, post-intervention, and 1-month follow-up in 12 participants with serious mental illness using the Recovery Assessment Scale (RAS), Temple University Community Participation Measure-Japanese version (TUCP-J), and Social Functioning Scale (SFS), alongside symptom severity assessed with the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS). These measures were used as exploratory clinical outcomes to describe preliminary patterns of change and to inform future controlled studies, rather than to determine intervention effectiveness. The qualitative component involved semi-structured interviews with occupational therapists who delivered the intervention, to contextualize the quantitative findings and identify implementation barriers and adaptations. The quantitative intervention study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya University, Japan (2023-0209), and registered with the UMIN Clinical Trials Registry (UMIN000045392). The qualitative interview study was approved by the Ethics Review Committee for Research Involving Human Participants, Nihon Fukushi University, Japan (23-041-03). Results:No significant improvements were observed in the exploratory outcomes of recovery, participation, or social functioning. Although BPRS showed a significant overall time effect, post-hoc comparisons between time points were not significant, and this change cannot be causally attributed to AOI because of the single-arm design. In an exploratory observation, participants with higher symptom severity appeared to show lower community participation. Qualitative findings suggested that the intervention dose, participant-program fit, readiness for activity change, and group-based delivery conditions may need further optimization within Japanese psychiatric daycare settings. Discussion:The findings suggest that group-based AOI may be feasible to implement in Japanese psychiatric daycare settings, but further cultural and clinical adaptation is needed before effectiveness can be evaluated in controlled trials. Adaptation may require preserving AOI's theoretical foundations while making the intervention less exposing, less abstract, and more accessible in group-based settings. Future studies should use controlled designs, longer follow-up periods, and broader outcome indicators to examine the effectiveness and implementation of culturally adapted AOI. Clinical trial registration:UMIN Clinical Trials Registry https://www.umin.ac.jp/ctr/, identifier UMIN000045392.
The Modified Tinkertoy Test (m-TTT) is a performance-based, self-structured construction task that may complement structured neuropsychological measures by capturing self-initiated goal setting, planning, execution, monitoring, and self-correction in open-ended performance. Demographically informed reference data for Japanese adults remain limited. This study developed preliminary community-based reference data and regression-based standard scores for the m-TTT in Japanese adults aged 20-59 years. Adults were stratified by age decade and sex. Of 132 individuals assessed, 8 were excluded because of elevated psychological distress or failure to meet the right-handedness criterion, leaving 124 participants (62 men, 62 women; 31 per decade). Age decade-by-sex differences were examined using analysis of covariance with years of education as a covariate, and regression-based z scores and standard scores were derived using age, sex, and education. After adjustment for education, years of education were associated with score, whereas age decade, sex, and their interaction were not significant. The mean m-TTT score was 10.91 (SD = 2.40), and the education-adjusted model explained 3.4% of score variance (R2 = .034; adjusted R2 = .010; RMSE = 2.39). These findings provide a reference framework for adults aged 20-59 years. The resulting scores should be interpreted as reference indices rather than definitive norms.
