Mr. Yasuhiro Matsuda, Department of Electrical Engineering, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Meiji University (Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo), performed manual therapy such as rubbing, tapping, and rubbing on the muscles of the body, and how much the pain in the body could be alleviated. Developed a method to numerically evaluate from brain activity.Mr. Matsuda worked on research in collaboration with Associate Professor Yume Ono of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the same university and Professor Minoru Onozuka of the Faculty of Health Sciences of Nippon Sport Science University.

 Usually, the effect of manual therapy that approaches the subject's muscles and joints by the operator's hand is evaluated by palpation before and after the procedure and by measuring the bending angle of the joint.However, the only way to evaluate pain at the treatment site is to have the patient express it verbally or using a scale, which is vague and lacking in objectivity, and cannot be used for patients who have difficulty communicating in language. There was a problem.

 Therefore, Matsuda et al.'S research group focused on the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which works when recognizing pain stimuli.While monitoring the activity of this frontal prefield using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), which measures the activity using near-infrared light that is harmless to the human body, manual therapy is applied to the thigh muscles required to bend the hip joint. The frontal anterior field activity and the subjective pain intensity when the hip joint was bent to the maximum angle before and after the treatment were measured.
It was found that when the procedure therapy was applied, the pain was reduced even when the hip joint was bent to the same angle as before the procedure, and the brain activity measured by NIRS was also reduced.Furthermore, in the range of pain intensity that is generally the target of manual therapy, a proportional relationship was obtained that the less pain the subject felt, the smaller the brain activity, indicating the possibility of evaluating the patient's pain intensity from the brain activity. rice field.

 Mr. Matsuda, a graduate student who is a judo rehabilitator himself and is a teacher of a judo rehabilitation school who is practicing and educating every day, said, "In the future, clinical research targeting actual patients and surgeons We plan to utilize this method for training. Through the development of a diagnostic system that quantifies changes in pain sensations such as body temperature and blood pressure, the surgeon will be able to select a treatment method that is suitable for each patient. It is expected that the patients themselves will be able to experience the effects of the treatment at each visit, which will help motivate them to improve their daily lifestyle. "

 This research was carried out with a grant from the Japanese Society for Medical and Biological Sciences, and was published in "Biomedical Engineering" Vol.2017 (No.2) dated February 10, 55, in the journal of the Japanese Society for Medical and Biological Engineering.

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