[No. 104] Arinori Kamono

When advancing from the affiliated Keio Senior High School to Keio University, I didn't particularly have my heart set on the Faculty of Science and Technology. It wasn't that I had a strong interest in anything specific; I liked physics, but I was also interested in economics, literature, and languages, so I chose the faculty somewhat vaguely. However, looking back on my path through the Department of Applied Physics and Physico-Informatics and the Biomedical Engineering Laboratory (Tomita Lab) to graduate school, I feel it was because I discovered the joy of unraveling and explaining things that exist quite naturally in the world around us. This is something that connects to my current work as a physical therapist and a university faculty member. Here, I would like to introduce some episodes from my time entering university to the present, focusing on my years in the Faculty of Science and Technology and the Graduate School of Science and Technology.

Having suffered a back injury in a high school club, I struggled to choose a circle at university. I remember feeling a mix of wanting to devote myself to something and the frustration of not finding a specific object of interest. In the midst of that, I happened to join the "Wagner Society Male Choir." Naturally, it was all men, with about 60 to 70 members at the time. I remember thinking it was ridiculous to be taken to practice with nothing but men, but I ended up completely hooked on singing. I didn't mind the five practices a week at all; I sang in the clubroom or music practice rooms during my free time, and eventually, I was even "clearing" time just to immerse myself in music. My heart was more in singing and music than in lectures, but one thing I enjoyed immensely during that time was "experiments." Following the lab manual to derive results backed by theory. However, I remember that thinking about why those results were reached—whether the difference between predicted and experimental values was due to procedural issues that could be fixed by doing it more carefully, or due to uncontrollable factors—and writing up reports was a kind of fun that lectures didn't offer, despite the hard work.

When I moved up to my fourth year as an undergraduate, there was a laboratory assignment for my graduation research. Still obsessed with singing, I chose my preferred lab based on a simple, almost intuitive motivation: an interest in the human body. It was only later that I learned the lab was famous for its thorough (strict) guidance. However, the encounter with "research" there was shocking for someone like me who hadn't considered graduate school at all, and it completely overturned my mindset of having decided that further study was pointless. My graduation thesis theme was simulating the chaotic nature of neural firing phenomena, but in addition to the interest of that research, I think another factor in my decision to go to graduate school was being exposed to clinical research at the Clinical Engineering Room of the Tsukigase Rehabilitation Center. By the way, I still remember the words of my supervisor, Professor Yutaka Tomita: "There are no holidays in research. It's research 365 days a year!"

In my Master's program, I stayed at the staff dormitory of the Tsukigase Rehabilitation Center to work on the development of an electrical stimulation device for gait assistance for stroke patients with hemiplegia. I handled everything from device development to trials and data collection with hospitalized patients. Meeting the physical therapists and rehabilitation physicians there had a major impact on my career path. Although I had heard the word rehabilitation, I didn't know what physical therapy was, but I felt an attraction to this job that looks professionally at human body movement. In English, a physical therapist is called a "Physical Therapist," and while there are various interpretations, I consider them to be experts and healers of the "physical"—the body. I decided to become a physical therapist because I wanted to help people and society from this perspective.

After completing my Master's program, I transferred into the School of Allied Health Sciences at Kitasato University. Upon graduation, I passed the national examination for physical therapists and took a job as a physical therapist at the Naka-izu Rehabilitation Center (Izu City, Shizuoka Prefecture). Currently, I am a full-time lecturer in the Department of Physical Therapy, School of Nursing and Rehabilitation Sciences at Showa University, where I am engaged in the education of students aspiring to become physical therapists.

Currently, I am conducting research on the theoretical elucidation of gait training methods for stroke patients with hemiplegia. Through physical therapy or rehabilitation, patients with hemiplegia re-acquire the ability to walk and improve that ability as a means of mobility in daily life. That process has not yet been fully elucidated, and training methods have not been established. However, the fact that patients with hemiplegia acquire the ability to walk is something that is already happening. I believe my future work is to establish logic and hypotheses to clarify the mechanisms behind this phenomenon and connect them to more effective treatments.

As for the singing and music I started in university, they remain precious assets today. Whether singing in a local choir in Yokohama or performing solo while taking voice training, they add color to my life.

Research and singing—while writing this piece, I was able to feel once again that the things I gained while studying in the Faculty of Science and Technology and the Graduate School of Science and Technology have become things I will likely devote my life to.