These results confirmed the benefits of complementary and alternative medicine including touching and massage found in previous studies. Hand massage prompted relaxation in geriatric facility residents in this experiment.

We investigated relation of disability and independency in housework. Objects are 84 women who worked as housekeepers before the onset of stroke. The items of house works which are investigated are cooking, cleaning, washing, and shopping. The results are as follows: 16 women do all items, and 22 women do no items, and 46 women do partial items. According to the statistic evaluation, ability of ambulance and severity of upper extremity function most influence on the ability of house work. And higher cortical dysfunction without severe dementia make a minor influence on the ability. The patients who act as housekeepers have a normal intellectual ability, ability of outdoor walking, and mild damage of upper extremity function. Many women are given assistance by other home members, and many assistance are given if women's ability is lower. (Jpn J Rehabil Med 1999; 36: 644-648)

The effect of heel elevation of shoes in Parkinson's disease was analyzed by using two gait measurement systems. The heel elevation brought about some improvement of walking in the patients with Parkinson's disease with shortening of a stride period, a step period and the transition time of the plantar pressure peak from heel contact to toe off. After measurement study of the gait, all the patients answered the best heel height of shoes was higher than that of their casual footwear or the same. This simple treatment method may be also effective for fall prevention in patients with Parkinson's disease, and further investigation with follow-up observations should be necessary to verify the effect. The first step period (s) 0.84 ± 0.33 0.89 ± 0.30 (NS) 0.86 ± 0.22 (NS) 0.81 ± 0.31 (NS) Peak pressure at heel (kg/cm 2 ) 1.47 ± 0.52 1.27 ± 0.29 (NS) 1.30 ± 0.37 (NS) 1.33 ± 0.28 (NS) Peak pressure at forefoot (kg/cm 2 ) 2.20 ± 0.64 2.37 ± 0.58 (NS) 2.25 ± 0.66 (NS) 2.40 ± 0.75 (NS) Peak interval period (s) 0.44 ± 0.05 0.398 ± 0.03 ( P < 0.05) 0.37 ± 0.03 ( P < 0.05) 0.35 ± 0.08 ( P < 0.05)Gait parameters by three heights of heel elevation were compared, respectively, with those without heel elevation in the patients with Parkinson's disease. No significant differences were observed in any gait parameters of the control subjects. Mean± SD (significance level).F Eto et al.