BACKGROUND The Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2001 left around 20,000 dead or missing. Previous studies showed that rescue workers, as well as survivors, of disasters are at high risk for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This study examined the predictive usefulness of the Peritraumatic Distress Inventory (PDI) among rescue workers of Disaster Medical Assistance Teams (DMATs) dep...

In Japan, older adults account for the highest proportion of population any country in world. When large-scale earthquake disasters strike, large numbers casualties are known to particularly occur among seniors. Many physically or mentally vulnerable and require assistance during different phases disaster response, including rescue, evacuation, living an evacuation center. However, growing numb...

The Great East Japan Earthquake inflicted immense damage over a wide area of eastern Japan with the consequent tsunami. Department of Traditional Asian Medicine, Tohoku University, started providing medical assistance to the disaster-stricken regions mainly employing traditional Asian therapies.We visited seven evacuation centers in Miyagi and Fukushima Prefecture and provided acupuncture/massa...

Introduction: The Japan Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) was established in 2005. Although it had become possible to gather medical teams at an early stage the fields of health and welfare, there still been a lack personnel. In 2017, Japanese government decided establish Health Coordination Headquarters when we major disasters. Not only team, but also public nurse welfare team gathered t...

Abstract In the aftermath of natural disasters, emergency medical teams (EMTs) are dispatched to help local rescue efforts. While some impact evaluations EMTs available, few comprehensive implementation in have been published date. As a result, evidence base inform global guidelines and best practices, is remarkably thin. This paper aims provide better understanding role EMTs, by summarizing re...

Initial stage of a disaster is managed with existing resources. The following stages of disaster response often involve assistance from outside of the disaster zone. This may consist of mutual aid from neighboring communities for small-scale incidents but in major disasters, the response is from federal or international agencies or often both. Rapid needs assessment after an incident is a colla...