Aphasia is a language disorder that negatively affects a person's ability to understand and generate language. Although it has been said that patients in the chronic phase are not likely to recover their ability, a number of recent studies report that highly frequent and continuous training enables recovery. Therefore, we have started a project that aims to improve the environment in which people with aphasia can continue language learning at home. In this presentation, we demonstrate naming practice apps, using speech recognition technology for people with aphasia. They can check whether their utterances are accurate, through the use of speech recognition and they can listen to the correct pronunciation of words through the use of speech synthesis. Field trials using the app for tablets have been conducted since Dec. 2014, and for the communication robot, Pepper, since Dec. 2015. Although the average of speech recognition accuracy was 61 % (false acceptance: 2%, false rejection: 37%), the participants accepted the poor robustness of the speech recognition, and tried to speak clearly. Some participants felt as if the robot was somewhat similar to a child, and others understood its inflexibility, and so in consequence they both accepted its low speech recognition ability.

Background Elderly inpatients who develop fevers after resumption of oral intake are often considered to have aspiration pneumonia (AP) and be tentatively fasted. Fasting has been associated with prolonged hospital stays and decreased swallowing ability. The purpose of this study was to compare AP and other infections after resumption of oral intake in elderly inpatients and to identify the clinical characteristics. Patients and methods The records of patients who were admitted to a public tertiary hospital and referred for evaluation of swallowing disability were retrospectively reviewed to identify those who had developed AP, non-AP, or urinary tract infection (UTI) after resumption of oral intake. Eligible patients were enrolled consecutively in the study. The patient characteristics, physical findings, laboratory data, oral intake status at the time of onset of symptoms, and rate of discontinuation of oral intake after onset of infection were compared between the three types of infection. Results A total of 193 patients developed an infectious illness after resuming oral intake. Among them, 114 patients had a diagnosis of AP (n = 45), non-AP (n = 24), or UTI (n = 45). There were no significant differences in patient characteristics, physical findings or laboratory data between the group with AP and the other two groups. AP developed at a median of 6 (range 1–16) days after resumption of oral intake. The rate of discontinuation of oral intake was 91.1% in the AP group, 58.3% in the non-AP group, and 26.7% in the UTI group, respectively. Conclusion Infectious diseases other than AP should be considered in the differential diagnosis when nosocomial fever develops in elderly inpatients more than 17 days after resuming oral intake. Furthermore, nosocomial fever after resuming oral intake has many causes other than AP, and discontinuation of oral intake should be carefully considered.

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The Cubixx ® system seamlessly monitors the storage status of medicines by using wireless networks, enabling the return and lot exchange of medicines stored under non-room temperature conditions, which was generally impossible previously. To evaluate the availability of the Cubixx ® system, we surveyed recent trends in the Japanese pharmaceutical market, status of pharmaceutical purchases, and status of the use of the Cubixx ® system in Yokohama City University Hospital.The Japanese pharmaceutical market continued to grow from 2007 to 2019 (P < 0.001). There are 11 pharmaceutical therapeutic categories (hereinafter referred to as "correlated categories") that have a statistically positive correlation with the expansion of the total output (P < 0.001). In the targeted period, most medicines newly listed on the NIH price list (67.9％) belong to correlated categories, and the ratio of injection medicines stored at non-room temperature which are expensive has increased. 96.7％ of A-ranked medicines with ABC analysis in Yokohama City University Hospital are injection medicines, which tend to be expensive and stored at non-room temperature. 85％ of A-ranked items belong to correlated categories. Due to the use of the Cubixx ® system, the targeted medicines were never discarded during the targeted period. The total amount of returned medicines during the period accounted for 62.3％ of the total. The recent Japanese pharmaceutical market has continued to grow, with the increase in newly released injection medications which belong to correlated categories, are stored at non-room temperature, and expensive. The Cubixx ® system may be useful in the inventory management of these medicines.