Career Path Opportunities
‘Challenges for young researchers’

Career Path Opportunities ‘Challenges for young researchers’

Career Opportunity as a Post-doctoral Fellow(PD)

Okawa Yohei

Yohei Okawa

I graduated from the Department of Nursing, Showa University School of Health Care in 2012, and started working at the Intensive Care Center of Tokai University Hospital in 2012. I received my Master's degree in Nursing from the Department of Critical Care Nursing, Tokai University Graduate School of Health Sciences in 2014, PhD in Behavioral Medicine, Department of Functional Medical Science, Graduate School of Medicine,Tohoku University in 2018. In 2020, I started working as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Clinical Nursing, Faculty of Education and Research, Kochi University, with the three goals of education, research, and social contribution.

Research conducted at GNRC

Research you have done in GNRC on visualization of defecation disorder was conducted in GNRC's Imaging Nursing. In general, diarrhea and constipation, which are gastrointestinal symptoms, are among the most common symptoms that occur in daily life, even in healthy people. Although there are many causes of these problems, healthy people can prevent fecal incontinence or alleviate the symptoms by taking actions such as going to the bathroom or visiting a medical institution in advance. However, the elderly, whose cognitive and motor functions have deteriorated, may not be able to report subjective symptoms and may have difficulty defecating on their own. Therefore, in order to prevent fecal incontinence due to diarrhea, we wondered if there was a way to predict diarrhea in advance. Using an abdominal ultrasound imaging device, we conducted research to visualize the presence or absence of stool by non-invasively imaging the colon. Previous studies in the Social Cooperation Course of Imaging Nursing have reported the visualization of normal and hard stools by using echo. Therefore, we conducted research to establish a technology to visualize diarrhea.

Current research

We are currently working on the development of an objective predictive index for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a functional gastrointestinal disorder, which is a defecation disorder accompanied by abdominal pain and can occur even in healthy people leading a normal social life. Until now, the RomeIV diagnostic criteria have been used for IBS. This can diagnose IBS by asking about subjective symptoms. However, it has been difficult to use the RomeIV criteria in patients who are unconscious or have cognitive impairment because they cannot report subjective symptoms. Therefore, I am currently examining the physiological changes specific to IBS by combining autonomic nervous system, muscle blood volume, and ultrasound imaging devices to objectively predict IBS. In the future, I would like to support the treatment and nursing care of IBS in unconscious and cognitively impaired patients with a simple and non-invasive testing method.

Future outlook

Through my experience as a special researcher at GNRC, I was able to learn how to scientifically clarify phenomena using the methods of nursing science and engineering in order to solve questions in clinical practice. In particular, I was able to learn about the needs of home health care and the methods of a wide variety of interventional research at the course meetings and research fields of the social collaboration course, Imaging Nursing, and I would like to apply the valuable experience I gained at the GNRC to my future research and educational activities in industry-academia collaboration to become a researcher who can contribute to society.

Accomplishments

JSPS KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity for Young Scientists. Grant Number 19K19701. Development of an evaluation method for diarrhea in elderly patients with deteriorated cognitive and motor functions using ultrasonography equipment.
Okawa Yohei, Fukudo Shin, Sanada Hiromi. Specific foods can reduce symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome and functional constipation: a review. BioPsychoSocial medicine. 13(10).2019. DOI.org/10.1186/s13030-019-0152-5