Community-based surveys were performed in seven rural areas in Japan to investigate the prevalence of dementia and illnesses causing dementia. A total of 5431 elderly subjects were selected based on census data from 1 October 2009. In total, 3394 participants were examined (participation rate: 62.5%), and 768 dementia cases and 529 mild cognitive impairment cases were identified. Of the illnesses causing dementia, Alzheimer's disease was the most frequent (67.4%), followed by vascular dementia (18.9%), dementia with Lewy body disease (4.6%), mixed dementia (4.2%) and other illnesses. The prevalence of dementia according to 5-year age strata between 65 and 99 years was 5.8-77.7% among the participants. The prevalence of dementia in this study was higher than in previous reports in Japan and other countries. To verify the upward trend of dementia prevalence and its background factors, we have scheduled surveys for three other urban areas in 2011-2012.

Previous research suggests that deficits in attention-emotion interaction are implicated in schizophrenia symptoms. Although disruption in auditory processing is crucial in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, deficits in interaction between emotional processing of auditorily presented language stimuli and auditory attention have not yet been clarified. To address this issue, the current study used a dichotic listening task to examine 22 patients with schizophrenia and 24 age-, sex-, parental socioeconomic background-, handedness-, dexterous ear-, and intelligence quotient-matched healthy controls. The participants completed a word recognition task on the attended side in which a word with emotionally valenced content (negative/positive/neutral) was presented to one ear and a different neutral word was presented to the other ear. Participants selectively attended to either ear. In the control subjects, presentation of negative but not positive word stimuli provoked a significantly prolonged reaction time compared with presentation of neutral word stimuli. This interference effect for negative words existed whether or not subjects directed attention to the negative words. This interference effect was significantly smaller in the patients with schizophrenia than in the healthy controls. Furthermore, the smaller interference effect was significantly correlated with severe positive symptoms and delusional behavior in the patients with schizophrenia. The present findings suggest that aberrant interaction between semantic processing of negative emotional content and auditory attention plays a role in production of positive symptoms in schizophrenia. (224 words)

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Background Green care farms, which offer care for people with dementia in a farm setting, have been emerging in the Netherlands. The aim of this study was to 1) implement green care farms which use rice farming in Japan, 2) explore the positive experiences of rice farming care, and 3) compare the effect of rice farming care to that of usual care on well-being and cognitive ability. Methods We developed a new method of green care farm in Japan which uses rice farming, a farming that is practiced all over East Asia. The participants were 15 people with dementia (mean age = 75.6 ± 9.8 years) who participated in a one-hour rice farming care program once a week for 25 weeks. We also collected qualitative data on the positive experiences of study participants after the program. As a reference data, we also collected the corresponding data of the usual care group which included 14 people with dementia (mean age = 79.9 ± 5.8 years) who were attending the near-by day-care. Results The mean participation rate on the rice farming care group was 72.1%. After the intervention, participants reported experiencing enjoyment and connection during the program. It also changed the staff’s view on dementia. The green care farm group showed a significant improvement in well-being but no significant difference in cognitive function compared to the usual care group. Conclusions Green care farms by using rice farming is promising care method which is evidence-based, empowerment-oriented, strengths-based, community-based dementia service, which also delivers meaningful experience for the people with dementia in East Asia. Trial registration UMIN, UMIN000025020, Registered 1 April 2017.

Background:The aim of the present study was to estimate prevalence rates of dementia and its subtypes in the population aged 65 years or more in a rural area of Japan. Methods:A survey was conducted in Itoigawa, a city with 33 120 inhabitants in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. There were 7847 persons aged 65 years or older, and they comprised 23.4% of the total population. The first phase survey included questions on medical history, activities of daily living, psychiatric and behavioral symptoms and MMSE. When the responses were examined 6394 valid replies were received (81.5%) and 914 subjects were identified who were suspected of having dementia. In addition, 200 samples were selected randomly as controls from the 5480 people who were not suspected of dementia. The second phase survey was applied to a total of 1114 subjects. Pairs of psychiatrists and nurses made house-to-house visits and examined the subjects in detail. Clinical diagnoses of the subtypes of dementia were based on the criteria set out by the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease and DSM IV. Results:The prevalence rate of dementia was estimated at 6.2% (men 4.5%, women 7.4%), which is higher than that found by previous reports in Japan. Alzheimer type dementia was the most frequent diagnosis, accounting for 4.0%, followed by vascular dementia (1.2%), other type of dementia (0.3%) and unknown dementia (0.8%). 'Questionable dementia', as defined by the Clinical Dementia Rating 0.5, was found in 4.4% of respondents (men 6.3%, women 3.0%). Conclusions:The prevalence of dementia in a rural area was higher than that of previous Japanese reports, and the prevalence rate of Alzheimer type dementia was much higher than that of vascular dementia.

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Although nootropics and metabolically active compounds sometimes attenuate intellectual deficits of dementia patients, this mechanism has not been discussed or investigated. The authors hypothesized that these compounds act to enhance attention and/or concentration by increasing the arousal level, and then improve intellectual functions. Based on this hypothesis, the authors investigated the arousal level and the improvement of intellectual functions in ten patients with Alzheimer type dementia and ten patients with multi-infarct dementia before and after 3 months pharmacotherapy using bifemelane hydrochloride. They then analyzed whether the increases in arousal level involves or relates to the improvement of intellectual functions. On the 20 patients, psychological tests were carried out, and the arousal level was evaluated using the frequency of rapid eye movements in the electro-oculogram (EOG) before and after 3 months administration of bifemelane hydrochloride. As a result, a significant positive correlation was observed between the improvement on the Hasegawa's dementia scale and the rate of increase in rapid eye movements in the EOG. The EOG monitoring can be a great help in establishing an objective evaluation method on drug efficacy.