Japan is facing a “super-aging” society which the world has never experienced before. Challenges of a super-aging society are becoming a global issue and the world is watching how Japan will deal with this unprecedented phenomenon. The Kanagawa Prefectural Government is responding to this situation with the initiatives of “ME-BYO Summit Kanagawa,” based on the concept of improving ME-BYO (*1), which is a condition between healthy and sick. In order to create an “Aging Society with a Smile up to 100 Years Old,” the Prefecture is working under an industry-academia-government partnership to realize a society where individuals can take an initiative to act proactively to manage their own health.

(*1) What is ME-BYO?

ME-BYO is a concept to indicate all changes of people’s physical and mental conditions between healthy and sick, considering that their status changes continuously between these two conditions, as opposed to viewing health and sickness as two separate conditions.

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1. Visualizing ME-BYO with cutting-edge technology

“ME-BYO Japan 2017” Exhibition

This exhibition was held at Pacifico Yokohama for three days from October 11 (Wednesday) to 13 (Friday), 2017, to introduce ME-BYO-related products and services with state-of-the-art technology. What drew attention of more than 15,000 visitors were sensor devices which visualize a ME-BYO condition. Some of them were certified by the Kanagawa Prefectural Government as “ME-BYO BRAND” for their excellence. The Kanagawa Prefectural Government is encouraging people to utilize such products and services to assess their own health conditions before becoming ill and improve their ME-BYO condition.

- MIMOSYS (R): PST Inc.

It is a system capable of recognizing people’s mental conditions such as emotion and stress on a real-time basis by analyzing changes in their vocal cords when they talk through smartphones. The companies that are working on employees’ health management are introducing the system.

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- Fatigue and stress measuring system: Fatigue Science Laboratory Inc.

The system uses small equipment to measure the autonomic nervous system by ECG (electrocardiogram) and PPG (photoplethysmography) at simultaneously and display fatigue and stress conditions on smartphones and other devices. It is being introduced to check fatigue of long-distance drivers before they take the wheel.

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- Robot suit HAL (R): CYBERDYNE Inc.

“HAL (R)” is the world’s first cyborg-type robot that helps improve, assist, expand and reproduce body functions. When one tries to move one’s body, HAL (R) reads bioelectric signals that flow to one’s muscles from the brain through nerves and moves the body as one wishes.

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- IoT Smart Home (TM): NTT Docomo, Inc.

Sensors installed in the house collect data on a resident’s living status in a cloud database. It is a futuristic home for the resident to assess his/her living conditions on a single control screen.

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2. Establishment of “ME-BYO indexes”

The Kanagawa Prefectural Government is establishing “ME-BYO indexes” in collaboration with academia and others.

(1) Meetings on ME-BYO and relevant issues held by experts from World Health Organization (WHO) and other entities.

The Kanagawa Prefectural Government is holding meetings with experts from Japan, WHO and other parts of the world to pursue the themes of ME-BYO concept and the WHO’s “healthy aging” (*2). Their focus of discussion is to determine common basic directions and contents to coordinate between the WHO’s attempts to establish evaluation standards to measure people’s innate ability (both physical and mental), and Kanagawa’s ME-BYO indexes.

(*2) Healthy aging: This term represents efforts to enable the elderly not only to stay without illness but also to lead satisfactory lives.

(Image8: ME-BYO Summit Kanagawa Special Lecture by Dr. Anarfi Asamoa-Baah, former deputy director-general of WHO

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(2) Behavioral Prediction-Preventive Medicine (BPM) as ME-BYO index

In the ME-BYO Summit Kanagawa 2017 in Hakone (Oct.20 - 21, 2017), the details of an estimated metabolic risk model (*3), a ME-BYO index developed and utilized by Kanagawa and Tokyo University’s Center of Innovation (COI), were introduced.

(*3) By using the medical examination and other health data, this ME-BYO index shows people’s possibility of developing metabolic syndrome (metabolic prediction) in three years. This enables early detection of prospective patients with this disease, and stimulates their behavioral change by visualizing risk factors on their smartphones.

For more information, please visit: https://www.me-byo-summit.jp/en/