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The authors are in the process of exploring an information support robot to support daily activities of people with mild cognitive impairment or dementia. The purpose of this paper is to reveal how the robot should talk to an older woman with dementia to make her perform daily activities.

The robot asked to the participant to do some daily activities; Task A, taking medicine; Task B, measuring blood pressure; and Task C, cleaning up the room in three different ways for each task. In the talking pattern 1 (TP1), the robot simply informed what the tasks were. The talking patterns 2 and 3 (TP2 and TP3) were separated according to the process of activities in two and three steps, respectively. The participant was required to answer “Yes” if she understood what the robot talked to her, and perform the tasks.

The participant was not able to prepare water in the Task A when the robot spoke the TP1 (performance rate (PR) was 71.4 per cent). However, she could perfectly take medicine in the case when the robot spoke the processes of the task by the TP3 (PR was 100.0 per cent). The similar tendencies were observed in the Tasks B and C.

Multicenter studies would be required to apply these findings to a larger population.

The authors confirmed that it might be important to determine how the robot talked to people with dementia to properly facilitate their daily activities.

The purpose of this paper is to review research on gender and disasters in Japan, from the Kobe Earthquake to the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE). Gender perspectives were not adequately considered immediately after these disasters. Rather, disasters reinforced the gender roles prevalent in Japanese society. The paper seeks ways to position gender perspectives into mainstream thought on disaster management in Japan.

A literature review was conducted of secondary Japanese sources including peer-reviewed and non-academic journals published by governmental and non-governmental organisations after the Kobe, Niigata Chuetsu, and GEJEs. Popularly searched keywords were the Japanese for “gender” or “women”, and “disasters”.

A review of the published literature indicated that gender-related issues experienced during the Kobe Earthquake in 1995 and the Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake in 2004 were repeated following the GEJE in 2011. Japan has experienced numerous disasters; thus, the importance of gender perspectives has been gradually recognised and has received increased attention after the GEJE. This paper emphasises that these should be embedded at policy level and within disaster management structures to create disaster resilient communities.

To date, not much research in Japan, and none published in English, has reviewed gender- and disaster-related issues.