Kyoto University School of Public Health

Field Medicine

Kozo Matsubayashi, M.D., Ph.D.Professor

“Field Medicine” is the research area that attempts to re-capture disease and aging in the context of culture and natural environment.

Modern clinical (bed-side) medicine has much succeeded in the lifesaving of the patients with acute diseases. As the results now, aging population has developed not only developed countries but also developing countries. However, modern clinical medicine in the hospital cannot completely deal with community-dwelling frail elderly patients with several chronic conditions living in each different ecology and socio-economic situation. Field medicine is addressing the comprehensive geriatric issues of community-dwelling elderly in the world using comprehensive geriatric assessment through actual medical field works.

Research and Education

Field Medicine aims to capture and discuss health and disease development from a different living environment, history, culture, and social status. Below some examples of our work.

  1. Comprehensive geriatric assessment and community-based intervention for the community-dwelling elderly in Japan.
    Comprehensive geriatric assessment and community-based intervention for the community-dwelling elderly have been carried out in Kahoku and Tosa in Kochi, Sonobe in Kyoto, Yogo in Shiga and Urausu in Hokkaido.
  2. Comprehensive geriatric assessment for the community-dwelling elderly in Asia.
    Cross-sectional comprehensive geriatric assessment for the community-dwelling elderly have been carried out in Korea, West Java in Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar.
  3. Medical research for nerurodegenerative diseases in West Papua.
    We have carried out medical field research for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Parkinson･Demantia complex disease in West Papua (Irianjaya) in Indonesia detecting some above patients. Future study is needed for etiological assessment.

Recent Publications

  1. Matsubayashi K et al. Mood Disorders in the Community-Dwelling Elderly in Asia. J Am Geriatr Soc, 58 (1);213-214, 2010.
  2. Matsubayashi K et al. ,Changing attitudes of elderly Japanese toward disease. J Am Geriatr Soc. 57 (9), 1732-1733, 2009.
  3. Kimura Y et al. Comprehensive geriatric assessment of elderly highlanders in Qinghai, China IV: Comparison of food diversity and its relation to health of Han and Tibetan elderly. Geriatr Gerontol Int 9 (4):359-365, 2009.
  4. Okumiya K et al. Improvement in obesity and glucose tolerance in elderly people after lifestyle exchange 1 year after an oral glucose tolenrance test in a rural area in LAO People’s Democratic Republic. J Am Geriatr Soc 56: 1582-1583, 2008.
  5. Fujisawa M et al. Trends in diabetes. Lancet 369:1257, 20

Field Medicine

Professor ： Kozo Matsubayashi
TEL ： 075-753-7368
FAX ： 075-753-7168
e-mail： kmatsu@cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp
URL： http://www.cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp（Center for Southeast Asian Studies）